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No. 19.— APRIL 1, 1391. 

Copyrighted, 1891, by Street <£• Smith. 

Entered at the Post-Office, New York, as Second-Class Matter. 


SEALED LIPS. 

(Bouche Close.) 


Translated from^pHe French of 

LEON DE TINSEAU. 


BY 


ANNA DYER PAGE. 


NEW YORK: 

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 

31 Rose Street. 


«n^ VOFC 'v 

/o^or 

unis TON* 


CONTENTS. 


I— An Honored Composer 5 

II — Descriptive 1 3 

III — A Floral Memento 22 

IV — Historical 3 2 

V — Patrice Receives a Shock 39 

VI — Cupid’s Arrow on Its Way 4-6 

VII — Floating Rumors 53 

VIII — Reconciliation ^2 

IX — A Re-Introduction Into Society 7° 

X — A Startling Assertion $3 

XI — A Happy Meeting 95 

XII— Startling Appraisements 105 

XIII — Godefroid’s Stern Resolve 113 

XIV— A Noble Sacrifice 122 

XV — Outburst of Sarcasm 13 2 

XVI — Separation H3 

XVII— “At Last.” 156 

XVIII — Among the Arabs 163 

XIX — “Are You Happier?” 173 

XX— “Shall I Make Her Hate Me ?” 181 

XXI — “You Will Never Return to France.” 188 

XXII— “Oh! How I Envy Him !” 197 

XXIII — “Give Me That Letter.” 206 

XXIV — “Has He Arrived ?” 217 

XXV— “My Poor Patrice !” 227 

XXVI— “He Has Never Saved Me !” 238 

XXVII — “What Should He Respond?” 247 

XXVIII— “The Dead Has Spoken To Me.” 256 

XXIX — “Pity Me, Since You Pity Patrice.” 267 

XXX -“I Will Listen To You.” 275 

XXXI — “I Have Sought For It So Long.” 289 

XXXII— “Dead !” 29s 


SEALED LIPS 


CHAPTER I. 

AN HONORED COMPOSER. 

The applause was long and loud, the curtain was 
raised several times with that docile facility which 
distinguishes a theater’s drop curtain, especially on 
evenings of a first representation. A new chef 
d’ oeuvre, “Constantin XII.,” words by a manufac- 
turer of librettos now in fashion, the music by 
Antoine Godefroid, had just been brought out, and 
scored a perfect success upon our greatest of lyric 
stages, The Opera. 

In the house, in the lobbies, and on the staircase 
two thousand people were talking as they went out. 
The sparkling eyes of the women endeavored to 
read even then, in the countenances of others, the 
triumph of their beauty more than half vailed under 
lace or hidden in softly caressing furs. The men 
gave their hats little caressing blows, shook hands 


6 


HEALED LIPS. 


and calmly smiled with that impertinent, morose, 
or blase coolness which is now the social custom of 
modern society. One could see that some of them 
did not find it dull, a much more infrequent result 
than we realize. 

Various groups were formed in the vestibules 
making up parties. They talked of the new work 
very little, but arranged meetings for the next day. 
To meet together, no matter where, is for the 
Parisian of to-day a supreme pleasure, to go to 
their homes the greatest of misfortunes. Each one 
delayed as long as possible the time when monsieur 
and madam should find themselves alone in their 
coupe, on their way home. Nobody seemed in a 
hurry save the journalists, who hastened to their 
offices to finish the article which they had already 
commenced in the morning, with a smattering of 
knowledge and some politic remarks upon the fall 
of Byzance, the final episode in the new opera. 

During this time, on the other side of the foot- 
lights, Antoine Godefroid was dividing his laurels 
with everybody. He was a composer who knew 
his trade, and had no illusions as to the modesty of 
the people connected with the theater. With a tired 
and melancholy smile, he had finished giving his 
praises. The principal actors had already gone to 
their dressing-rooms to remove their costumes. A 
suffocating crowd of people in dress suits, of all the 
artistic clans, remained, and it was from these that 
Godefroid tried to escape, repeating for the hun- 


SEALED LIPS. 


7 


dredtk time that nobody until now had directed an 
opera, looked after the scenery, led the chorus, beat 
time, painted and decorated a stage with such in- 
imitable perfection. A small number, more polite 
than the others, had courteously replied that he had 
contributed something toward the success of the 
opera. A wise man has said, that politeness con- 
sists in doing more than one needs to do and saying 
more than one thinks. 

Between times he shook hands with a crowd of 
strange men, one quarter of whom he knew by 
name and another quarter by sight. The physician 
in attendance, an old man with a gray beard, in his 
turn approached the musician. 

“My dear friend,” said he, “you are in one of 
those two situations in life when you will receive 
the most hand shaking.” 

“Why, to be sure; so I have noticed, doctor. 
When will the other be?” 

“At your marriage, with a little difference, how- 
ever.” 

“What is it? Just now I am not equal to guess- 
ing conundrums.” 

“Only this, on that day you will be congratulated 
at the end of the prologue.” 

“A wise precaution,” replied Godefroid. “In that 
branch of art we see too many representations 
which never reach an end.” 

At last he was alone, and for the first time in 
many weeks free to give his nerves a little rest. 


8 


SEALED LIPS. 


When he had disappeared, a second tenor, who re- 
entered in his ordinary clothes, observed that Gode- 
froid had left without asking them to supper. 

The leader of the orchestra defended the com- 
poser : 

“ He looks as if he had had enough for one even- 
ing.” 

One of the head employees whispered a little 
loudly in the tenor’s ear : “ Probably he prefers to 
sup with the Princess Adossides.” 

Twenty people heard this insinuation, and smiled 
in a knowing way. The princess in question was 
the principal female character in the new opera, 
being no other than the debutante of the evening, 
the beautiful, much admired, and much envied 
Jenny Sauval. 

To tell the truth, the public gave the master 
credit for better luck than he had. With his over- 
coat turned up to his ears, both hands in his pock- 
ets, and a lighted cigar, he stepped out of the door 
on Boulevard Haussman, with no other intention 
than to go slowly home, alone and on foot, to cool 
his forehead and temples in the fresh air in the 
silence of the night. But he had not counted upon 
surprises. As he passed the gate of the enormous 
building now almost entirely dark, a man who had 
been hiding there for half an hour, threw himself 
on his neck, and nearly strangled him with his 
embrace, 


SEALED LIPS. 


9 


“Dear old friend! Dear grand genius! How 
beautiful it was ! How happy you must be!” 

Having recovered from the embrace and the 
shock, Godefroid took the night wanderer under a 
neighboring gas light to stare at him, 

“Patrice! You! Here in Paris, and I know 
nothing of it ! And I have passed an evening like 
this without having the only friend that I can rely 
on here below, near me ! How, then, be off ! You do 
not deserve that I should look at you any longer!” 

“But what the devil! If I tell you that at six 
o’clock I was at the Lyons station trying to protect 
my poor traps against duties. I had only time to 
have my trunks and person taken to the first place.” 

“Why not to my house?” 

“ The time would have been well chosen. I had 
only time to buy a ticket in the pit, at a ridiculous 
price, and to take my seat before the first measure. 
If you believe me, I have had no dinner.” 

“Ho dinner?” 

“ Ho, but that is a discomfort to which I am ac- 
customed, and according to all appearances I shall 
be frequently subjected to it. I shall not always be 
compensated by a chef d’ oeuvre substituting a roast.” 

“Then your business ?” 

“Oh, it is not brilliant, my friend. Hever mind 
business. Talk of yourself. 'Constantin’ is an ad- 
mirable work, and its author a celebrity. Listen! 
To-morrow, when it is broad daylight, we will go 
to the boulevard together. You will give me your 


10 


SEALED LIPS. 


arm; I shall have my share of the glory. The 
passers-by will bow to us without suspecting that 
they have under their very eyes the most fortunate 
and the most unfortunate man in all Paris — success 
and failure, victory and defeat, a pelisse for fifty 
louis and a coat for forty-nine francs just bought at 
the Belle Jardiniere. One person out of two satis- 
fied. Fifty per cent, of happiness in our friendship. 
It is a good proportion, and I do not dream of com- 
plaining.” 

“You would do very wrong to do so. You are 
young, gay, and lively. How I envy you!” 

“Blase! He is already hardened. And you are 
going home on foot, like an author who has been 
hissed. I concealed myself here, expecting to see 
you pass in an elegant carriage, surrounded by an 
enthusiastic crowd. Oh! these favorites of for- 
tune ! I will wager that you are not hungry, not 
you!” 

“ My poor friend, I forgot. Come quickly to my 
house and I will keep you company. Joy at seeing 
you has given me an appetite.” 

Toward two o’clock in the morning Antoine Gode- 
froid and his friend, Patrice O’Farrell were smok- 
ing their cigars in the musician’s warm and com- 
fortable dining-room. 

“I am drunk,” said Patrice, “completely fuddled. 
You saw, too, that I drank nothing hut water, ac- 
cording to my Usual custom. Mon Dieu ! How my 
head aches ! What a confusion of ideas of all sorts 


SEALED LIPS . 


11 


and kinds ! My straw hut in the Okma Island, your 
walls hung with Gobelin tapestry, my Chinese cook 
with braided hair, your valet’s whiskers, the King 
of Siam’s bayaderes, the ballet dancers a few hours 
ago, my fights with pirates, the massacre of the 
unfortunate Dracoses, the sea, the ships, the rail- 
road, the opera, my elephants, the Parisians spark- 
ling with diamonds. Ah ! my friend, tell me that I 
am not crazy! You are not at the head of an insti- 
tution for the insane, and just now when I wanted 
to leave they did not give me a cold water douche?” 

“ Do not be uneasy. My brain is in no better con- 
dition than yours. It now contains eighty men, all 
in black coats, playing on every sort of an instru- 
ment that was ever heard of. Not only do they 
play, but I know in advance just the note that they 
should sound. I see it, I wrote it, I wait for it, and 
I am always afraid that they will play the wrong 
one. One of the disadvantages of the school that I 
belong to is that they notice false notes. Well! 
We are both tired out. Let us go to bed.” 

“You speak of it coolly; to go to bed, for you, 
simply means to open a door, take of your clothes, 
and stretch yourself out upon a good bed. But for 
me, to leave this arm-chair, go into the street, I 
should say real life; turn to the east into a laby- 
rinth of houses ; read the numbers ; get out of the 
way of carriages. If some one would only take me 
and put me out on the sidewalk ! Once there, will- 
ing or not, I would make an effort, like a paralytic 


12 


SEALED LIPS. 


placed on the track at the approach of a train.” 

“Come,” said Antoine, smiling, “you will not find 
the ordeal so hard as you think.” But he did not 
conduct his friend into the street. He raised a por- 
tiere, and they entered a room brightly lighted and 
heated by a fire. 

“I have moved since your departure,” said he. 
“But in this house, as well as the other, you have 
your room. Here, the same as there, you are at 
home. Sleep well, dear Patrice; thanks for the 
great happiness that you have given me this even- 
ing. Go to sleep quickly, for I warn you I shall not 
let you sleep long. As for me, I shall not shut my 
eyes.” 

O’Farrell, without listening to his host, looked 
about him with an air of suspicion. 

“Go,” sighed he, “my hallucination still con- 
tinues. But do not imagine that I shall be caught. 
I know very well that this room is a cabin, that this 
bed that looks so large and sumptuous is only a 
berth where I shall soon hear my companion, the 
Liverpool merchant, snoring only ten inches above 
my head. Good-night, I shall go to sleep at once, 
for fear of waking up entirely.” 

A short time after the young man was asleep, for 
the first time in five years, upon a pillow and a good 
bed in dear France. And strangest of all, the only 
vision he had before him as he slept was the beauti- 
ful Adossides of whom he had not spoken a word to 
Godefroid, 


HEALED LIPS. 


13 


CHAPTER II. 

DESCRIPTIVE. 

“ Constantin XII.” marked Antoine Godefroid’s 
debut upon the lyric stage, but the composer, al- 
though more than forty years old, did not make his 
debut as far as celebrity and fortune were con- 
cerned. His only operetta, “Des Filets de Vulcain,” 
this masterpiece of a style now passed by, for fifteen 
years the California for musicians, had enriched 
him by covering the walls of all the principal cities 
of Europe with his name. As practical in business 
matters as ambitious in his profession, Godefroid, 
while putting aside his profits in a sure place, was 
soon tired of this title of “ author of ‘Des Filets de 
Vulcain/” which he saw himself threatened with 
for the rest of his life. He was too wise not to 
understand that in time the operetta would suc- 
cumb to two fatal disorders — abuse and mediocrity. 
He felt that he was born for something better. He 
wrote “Constantin,” and without any trouble or 
waiting the doors of the Opera opened to receive 
his work. Then he felt that he had reached the 
height of his ambition. 

To tell the truth, it was not everybody’s opinion. 
An old master, whose teaching he followed more 


SEALED LIPS. 


U 

than his advice — for his independent will did not 
bend to others — made some predictions that he re- 
membered on the day that our story commences. 

“You are like,” said this sinister prophet, “those 
unlucky ones who build an inn on a mountain road 
the very day before a railroad is laid out which 
passes below it. You are a dreamer and a poet. 
Your talent consists of color, passion, tenderness, 
and enthusiasm. What the devil can one do with 
that in an opera? Are you blind? Do you not see 
that to-day the public discuss the beautiful as coldly 
as one discusses the thickness of a bridge’s iron 
beams? Art, like the Romish church of old, under- 
goes its reform. Two or three little Luthers led by 
one great one will undermine the edifice of our old 
musical creeds. I doubt if they have time to de- 
stroy the temple. Already these very serious and 
convincing men, much more learned than we, for 
they have not genius, have put their strong hands 
upon the grace notes. We now pass, thanks to 
them, for idolaters worthy of pity. To the stables 
with all statuary! to the fire with pictures! No 
more images in the sanctuary, only those cold gray 
pictures that the engineer’s compass traces, a hiero- 
glyphic mixture of straight, crooked, and broken 
lines. Ah! To be sure! You choose a fortunate 
moment to offer your sparkling gold, your azure 
skies and voluptuous, satin flesh. Certainly, I am 
easy as to the future, as true as there has been a 
Mozart, melody will come again, but these illusions 


SEALED LIPS. 


15 


must have their day. You, my dear fellow, have 
come too soon or too late.” 

The old professor did not convince Godefroid, for 
two other voices spoke louder still in the young 
master’s ear than experience and wisdom. One of 
these voices was that of immortal art. I will tell 
you of the other later. 

Until he was forty years old his profession had 
been his only faith, hope, and. love. Even from his 
youth art, like a beneficent god, had taken him by 
the hand in the humble school-house of a village in 
Touraine, where his father gained a scanty subsist- 
ence as instructor. 

One day the lady of the castle, Countess O’Far- 
rell, mother of Patrice, was surprised to hear the 
little parish church organ depart from its vulgar 
flourishes and play a sweet touching melody. The 
organist was sent for to come to the castle — castles 
were of some use in those days — and was compli- 
mented and questioned. The little fellow, fourteen 
years old, told how, until then, nature had been his 
only teacher. The sacred spark had kindled in 
him, he said, the first time he heard the talented 
organist at the cathedral play, on a trip that he had 
taken to the city with his father when very young. 

Still filled with ecstasy, he returned to his humble 
home, and passed the entire night in trying to find 
on a dilapidated old instrument the harmony that 
had transported him the night before into a new 
world. Thus, step by step, degree by degree, guided 


16 


SEALED LIPS. 


by an infallible ear, the child had discovered the 
fundamental principles of the science. At fourteen 
he not only accompanied the sacred chants per- 
fectly, but he improvised with much feeling and 
taste. 

“What would you like to do?” asked the enthusi- 
astic countess at the sight of this prodigy. 

“ To visit the cathedral organ and know the organ- 
ist,” replied the young country lad. “More than 
once I have been to X on foot, to attend wor- 

ship on fete days, and have pushed open the little r 
turret gate, and found myself on the narrow stair- 
way that seemed to me to lead to Paradise, but the 
young lads who blew the organ stopped me. One 
day they promised to let me work for them. How 
happy I was then ! It seemed that a part of me 
sung in every pipe. I had a genuine bath in har- 
mony, and that night, in spite of the dozen leagues 
that I walked, I never closed my eyes.” 

Madame O’Farrell had an artistic soul and a 
charitable heart, she felt that there was a future 
great artist in this child. 

First it was necessary to conciliate Father Gode- 
froid, an earnest instructor and a little defiant re- 
garding the castle, as people of his class were then 
scarcely less than to-day. A pedagogue — this word 
seemed all in all to him — passed in his eyes as one 
of the most noble and sure professions in the world. 
A musician ! That was^ something like a chorus 
singer minus the fees. 


SEALED LIPS. 


17 


Finally his consent was given on condition that 
the countess assumed all the expense. A few days 
later young Antoine knew the cathedral organ in 
another way than blowing it. 

He has often recounted since that the happiest 
day of his life — musical — was when he was seated 
upon the old oak bench for the first time to accom- 
pany a third-class burial mass. The dead, thank 
the Lord ! did not seem to notice the substitution of 
pupil for master, and the living, if they noticed it, 
did not complain. 

Three years after he left his home Antoine entered 
the Conservatory ; he was invited frequently during 
the winter to his benefactress’ house,, and learned 
in the best society of Paris a knowledge of the 
world, that so many of our illustrious geniuses are 
ignorant of, on account of studying it too late in 
life. 

L’Ecole de Rome received the young prize-taker, 
and when he returned to France almost immedi- 
ately fortune favored him, and commenced to 
wreath about his head the golden crown of success, 
a thing more rare at his age than the Institute 
laurels. 

From thence only two sentiments filled the heart 
of this happy mortal— love of his profession and 
gratitude toward the generous woman who had 
given him this profession. One of the first and 
greatest troubles of his life was the ruin of the 
O’Farrell family, a disaster followed in two years 


18 


SEALED LIPS. 


by the death of the countess and her husband. 

Their only child, young Patrice, was then only 
fifteen years old, and alone in the world. Antoine 
adopted him, and assumed most seriously the duties 
of a father ; he renounced, in order to remove his 
ward from all unfavorable contact, the pleasures 
which his reputation as a renowned artist opened 
to him in more than one part of the globe. Until 
the last of the 0 ’Farrells attained his majority his 
adopted father lead the life of a recluse. Sometimes 
this giving up of all pleasures seemed hard in his 
youth, but he was largely recompensed for it by the 
regularity and opportunities to work, with nothing 
to interrupt him. One thing remained to be seen 
— would not his heart and unknown senses, con- 
demned to solitude, some day reclaim the arrears a 
hundred fold? 

At all events when the young orphan was twenty- 
one years old he left his home to seek his fortune. 
Even after his departure Godefroid continued to 
work as seriously as ever. The most elevated 
branches of his largely developed nature seemed to 
have singularly weakened the frantic growth of his 
vigor. Thus by patient culture the ground refuses 
its strength to the brilliant but sterile flowers, keep- 
ing its richness for the branches of precious buds. 

It was a strange thing ! This great artist, ap- 
plauded by everybody, remained good, timid, and 
artless, and was always ready to assist others. He 
passed for a misanthrope and a haughty, proud 


HEALED LIPS 


19 


person. He had very few friends, either among 
young composers or the older masters. The first 
for the most part considered that they were rivals, 
unjustly frustrated by fate. The others wpre not 
attracted toward a talent that rose so quickly. 
They accused him of being a miser, and, of all cen- 
sure that they had given him, this above all caused 
them to withhold their sympathy. 

In reality nobody could be less avaricious than 
he, but in his tranquil existence the gold that he 
earned deposited itself like clay upon a ground cov- 
ered with stagnant water. 

Perhaps with time these faults that were attri- 
buted to him would prove to be untrue, a circum- 
stance of frequent occurrence. From continually 
hearing that he was a misanthrope he thought the 
world blind and unjust and disagreeable. It made 
him still more dignified when they reproached him 
for his pride, and if anything made money of value 
in his eyes it was to see to what a point those who 
did not have it made faces at those who did. He 
learned more and more to dispense with others’ 
society, a quality that is nearly related to egotism. 
However, upon these moderate and easily explained 
transformations of character art and work con- 
tinued to rule in a masterly manner. If he was not 
the happiest of men, he was surely one of the least 
to be pitied. The ideal steeped his soul in the purest 
delight ; reality spared him sorrow for the present, 


20 


HEALED LIPS . 


and, alone, in the world he was sheltered for the 
future from much vexation. 

Often, after he first undertook his great work, 
“Constantin,” the young man had been obliged to 
stop his tremendous task of putting each of the one 
hundred thousand notes which composed an act in 
the opera in their own place. He often felt that he 
had exhausted his strength, his inspiration, and his 
confidence in himself, but one thought always 
cheered him : 

“ I shall forget all this in one evening, providing 
that we come out conquerors in the struggle.” 

For it was not for himself alone that he trembled. 

Two new comers were to make their first appear- 
ance the same evening on one of the greatest lyric 
stages of the world ; Godefroid was aiming at the 
most noble success, and Jenny Sauvel, an un- 
known, was protected and launched by the young 
master ; people even said imposed upon them by 
his will. 

Both of them could now say that they had suc- 
ceeded. One was applauded for her voice and talent 
as well as her grace and beauty. The other was 
applauded not by a few hundred friends, but by an 
audience perhaps not as fashionably attired as 
people usually are on nights of a first representa- 
tion, but more intelligent and appreciative. Finally, 
to complete his happiness, the cordial and unex- 
pected greeting of the man that he loved best in all 
the world crowned one of the ever to be remem- 


SEALED LIPS. 


21 


bered hours of his life. And yet, when he entered 
his room, after having left Patrice, instead of the 
complete, profound, and secret joy that he expected 
to taste he felt in his heart a dim impression of un- 
easiness and vacancy. 

“What is it that I lack?” he asked himself. “Is 
not art, glory, fortune, and friendship all there is 
in this world?” 


23 


HEALED LIPS . 


CHAPTER III. 

A FLORAL MEMENTO. 

It was eight o’clock in the morning, and the lamp 
was still burning in Antoine Godefroid’s room. 
The hero of the night before was reading the jour- 
nals with calm attention, but a trifle uneasy, as a 
lawyer gives an abstract of a case. 

Patrice, fresh and rested, enters his friend’s room, 
and is surprised to find him with this preoccupied 
and sober face. 

“Mon Bleu /” exclaimed he, “what a pile of jour- 
nals! And to think that each one represents a 
political party! Happy France! Well, are you 
pleased? Does the incense burn upon all these blue, 
white, and red altars without exception? Ah! here 
is one where they compare you to Berlioz.” 

“You might say that the article was on Berlioz. 
He only speaks of me to deplore the unjust par- 
tiality of fate in respect to certain artists.” 

“ Pie admits in the same breath the success of your 
work.” 

“He admits it, but in his heart he laments it. He 
is politely astonished. Do you see, my friend, on 
the whole— for I love you too well to let you read 
all these papers — the public is only a lofty critic 
which fights me with a vengeance.” 


SEALED LIPS . 


23 


“Would you like it better if the two thousand 
people had hissed you last night and the twelve 
bald-headed critics should praise you this morning?” 

“Perhaps, for to-morrow these two thousand 
people will make their public apologies to these 
twelve gentlemen that you speak of, and excuse 
themselves for having applauded me too quickly.” 

“That would be preposterous. But what have 
you not upset these last hundred years, you fellows 
of the revolution?” 

“We thought to overturn all tyrannies, those of 
priests as well as kings. But another has sprung 
up — a band composed of critics and young fellows 
have put their feet upon the public, and have made 
them submit. ‘Obey/ cries this Kobespierre of 
music, literature, and the pencil. ‘Too long art has 
gloried in being your servant. Too long we have 
solicited your approbation. In your turn you must 
bow before us. What we like you must like. 
What we youngsters give you you will pretend to 
like and understand. What you think is of little 
importance to us. We advise you, above all things, 
not to sulk. We put away the scorned dish for 
pouting children until they are resigned to swal- 
low it, free to make up faces. Thus we shall do 
with you, oh, Frenchmen! We will take away 
the old masters, servile flatterers of your pleasure. 
What matters it if half a century is necessary to 
make you forget your tastes, instincts, and national 
customs? We will be patient, first because we have 


24 


HEALED LIPS. 


the future before us, and then because in spite of 
your bad humor you will bring us your money. Oh, 
public ! the easiest to govern in the world, if one 
remains firm the first quarter of an hour of your 
resistance.’ ” 

“ But among all these worthy people is there not 
one who takes your part and that of your school?” 

“No, for the journals agree on every point, better 
than you would suppose. They separate on politics, 
but after the fashion of bees who swarm upon dif- 
ferent bushes, under standing that if they were all 
to plunder the same plant they would die of hunger. 
But returning to their lives they all follow the same 
designs in their cells. Nevertheless for indepen- 
dents like me the journals always show a little 
spite. They love to revenge themselves in showing 
us as Bossuet said, that seated on a throne we are 
no less under their hands and supreme authority. 
Et nunc reges intelligite. Translated: Poor Gode- 
froid will not see many such evenings like yester- 
day’s.” 

“The devil take me if I expected to hear at this 
time your funeral oration. Go, pessimist! What 
would you say if you were in my place?” 

“My friend, pardon me, I am a miserable egotist. 
For twelve hours you have only heard me talk of 
what interests and pleases and disenchants me. It 
is, do you see, because I have not yet grasped the 
idea that my success is not yours, my gain your 
gain, that you work, succeed, and fail on your own 


SEALED LIPS. 


25 


account. Your return has made me forget the past 
six years in our life, and, seeing you before me, I 
imagine that it is still the same as when my 
thoughts said ‘we/ but my lips ‘1/ ” 

“And I? Did it take me long to return to my old 
habits of eating your bread and sleeping under 
your roof? Even when I left to seek my fortune, it 
was with your money. Do not be uneasy, I bring it 
back, but just what you gave me, without the slight- 
est addition.” 

“ I did hope so much to see you rich some day.” 

“An O’Farrell rich ! You are crazy ! Money with 
us is like truth among rogues, an exception never 
lasting. Many a time since my ancestor followed 
James II. into beautiful France we have met with 
bad luck, and on my own part I can pride myself 
upon keeping up the reputation of the family. God 
be praised, I have a firm grip.” 

“Was your plantation a complete failure?” 

“Yes and no. I obtained some superb crops. I 
had piles of coffee and mountains of sugar cane. 
As to tobacco I put it in ricks like hay. I can 
prove it, for there is not a leaf of it gone. It is all 
there. ” 

“ Well, what then?” 

“Well, crops are good for nothing if you cannot 
sell them, and that is what I never could do. My 
products were as detestable as abundant. My coffee 
smelled of tobacco, my tobacco of nothing, and 
was obliged to bring it to Paris for my own personal 


26 


HEALED LIPS. 


use. As to my sugar cane, it was as large as my 
arm, and gave out juice like a sponge, but the juice 
was not sweet, which was a great defect in that 
species. I might as well have distilled spinach. 
I still had my indigo remaining, which at tirst I 
had reason to be proud of. Ah, yes! You do not 
know about indigo ! It is magnificent in its savage 
state. It is subject, if one cultivates it, to twenty- 
seven diseases, all deadly. I was a little vexed, 
as you may imagine, when I received a premium 
of encouragement from the colonial government, 
which paid back what I had spent. It is useless to 
say that I made only one bound for the treasurer’s 
box and another to the steamer that brought me 
home.” 

“The colonial administration must have been a 
little angry at your way of employing its support. ” 

On the contrary, my departure relieved every- 
body. I was the despair of a whole army of agents. 
They had me continually on their hands, roads to 
build, bridges to mend, pirates to hang. The ad- 
ministrator’s office was no longer secure. They 
understood it, and encouraged me ” 

“To leave?” 

“It was deliverance for them. The colonist is 
their scourge. The native is always contented pro- 
vided he is not protected too much.” 

“Very well. Why did you not write?” 

“Because I had nothing good to tell jmu, and also 
so as not to disturb you in the midst of a musical 


HEALED LIPS. 


27 


composition. I know you. When I came home 
from college once, with a heavy cold, you could not 
write a note for two days. If I had sent you by 
mail my complaints as to the sun, the floods, the 
cholera, the pirates, the native mandarins, the 
French agents, and other pernicious plagues, the 
Turks would still be under the Byzance walls, and 
there would be one chef d’ oeuvre the less. There 
was no way that you could help me.” 

“ And now?” 

“Now it is another thing, and I depend upon your 
assistance to find a situation for me. That ought 
not to be very difficult, for I defy you to name a 
position that I am not qualified to fill. Thanks to 
somebody that I know, I have a good education. I 
can write prose and poetry, and speak five lan- 
guages. My last adventures have taught me navi- 
gation, commerce, agriculture, government, and 
even war, for I received and discharged more than 
one gun-shot in my island. I left a very good repu- 
tation there as a physician ; I baptized children, 
and even what is still more difficult, I have assisted 
them into the world.” 

“Acknowledge it, you have not been six years 
among the pagans without trying to convert some 
of them.” 

“I will admit it, since you oblige me to, but you 
are too much of a pagan yourself for us to agree on 
this subject. One thing is sure, I shall go back 


28 


SEALED LIPS. 


there if you do not interest yourself and get me a 
situation in three days’ time.” 

“Do not fret yourself, I will do so. But at first 
you must help me to open fifty or sixty letters that 
have arrived ; without you I should be lost. Oh, 
the correspondence ” 

O’Farrell commenced the work with the enthu- 
siasm that he showed in everything that he did. 
Without saying a word he watched his friend as he 
opened and glanced rapidly over the letters before 
him. He found Godefroid changed and older. 
What surprised him the most was to find this peev- 
ish temper, this disabused frame of mind, in a man 
for whom everything seemed to smile. His hands 
trembled slightly, and alternate waves of pallor and 
warm flushes mounted to his cheeks. Sometimes in 
order to decipher some handwriting, he used a mag- 
nifying glass. 

“These last years have aged him terribly,” 
thought Patrice; “he is no longer young. Poor 
friend !” 

At this moment the door opened wide, and one 
could see a mass of green and flowers of every 
shade and description, which seemd to walk of 
themselves. It was Antoine’s servant entering 
loaded with this fragrant burden. He had boxes of 
roses, baskets of lilies of the valley, whole branches 
of lilies, and wreaths of violets, with the name of 
Jenny Sauval traced in golden letters on the satin 


SEALED LIPS. 


29 


ribbons. A large envelope accompanied the gift. 
It contained a photograph and a short note. 

“Dear master, dear friend,” wrote the cantatrice, 
“ here are a few of the flowers that I received. I 
keep more than my share, but I wish my parlor to 
be decorated when you come to tell me if you were 
pleased with me. You said so little last evening. 
What matters the praise of others if I have deceived 
the hope of the one to whom I owe all?” 

The photograph represented the young artist in 
her adorable costume of princess, which heightened 
marvelously her refined and striking beauty. At 
the bottom of the lovely picture was written these 
words, taken from the role of Princess Adossides : 

“ He was the protector of my youth. 

“ He wiped away my first tears. 

“ Where should I be without him?” 

“Well, now,” said Godefroid, whose face lighted 
up for an instant, “there are some hearts that ap- 
preciate !” 

“Upon my word you invest your favors cleverly,” 
said the young man, as he gazed admiringly at the 
photograph. “The favor of the only Adossides 
would be worth more to me than that of all the Con- 
stantins or Mahomets that ever reigned over 
Byzance. What eyes ! If I were a millionaire ” 

“You would lose your time,” interrupted the 
composer, brusquely. “She is wisdom itself, you 
may be sure of it.” 

“ Alas ! without calumniating your protegee , there 


30 


SEALED LIPS. 


is something more positive even than her virtue; 
that is, that I am not a millionaire. Now, my fine 
gentleman, I suppose that you will perfume your- 
self, dress your hair, and put on your finest costume 
to go and give this innocent beauty the words of 
praise that she expects. If this troubles you I will 
go in your place.” 

“You will not go in my place, but we will go to- 
gether.” 

“Oh ! do you fear for your heart?” 

“No, but I dread the jokes of fools.” 

“Thanks!” 

“As to my heart, there is nothing to fear. At my 
age one does not love. I had a son whom I was 
obliged to look after carefully until he was eighteen. 
Now I am an old plucked bird, sitting on his perch 
and not knowing how to use his wings.” 

“Oh, well,” said Patrice, laughing, “it is such old 
birds as these that are in danger of being gobbled 
up by young cats.” 

The young man joked only with his lips. At the 
bottom of his heart he felt sad, and thought that on 
his account Godefroid had an isolated old age with- 
out a wife’s love or a child’s smile. 

“ Patrice,” said the composer, after a short 
silence, “I have done all that I could to bring you 
up well. Have you lost anything by passing your 
youth with a poor artist thrown upon the world 
entirely alone? Would your mother, your dear, 


SEALED LIPS. 


31 


noble, good mother, have anything to reproach me 
with?” 

O’Farrell glanced at the desk where for many 
years the portrait of a lady — always the same face 
— had occupied the same place, reserved for re- 
spectful gratitude. Then he said, taking Godefroid 
in his arms, as he had the night before : 

“ My mother blesses you, and her son will never 
leave you henceforth if you wish it. Rely upon me 
always.” 


32 


SEALED LIPS. 


CHAPTER IV. 

HISTORICAL. 

Jenny Sauval was at this time twenty-five years 
old, and justified in a most complete way the opin- 
ion that Antoine had of her virtue. She was not 
only wise, but she seemed very little disposed to 
commit the follies that the critics had spoken of the 
night before as they recalled her before the curtain 
many times. 

“ This little one will earn one hundred per cent, 
more when she loses something.” 

To which, according to report, one of her great- 
est admirers, Prince KenemefT, had replied : 

“If she only could lose her mother!” 

To be just to Madame Sauval, she resembled in 
no way the type usually described of an actress’ 
mother. She felt with the best faith in the world 
that her daughter lowered herself in singing upon 
the stage, even upon the Opera’s. She was very 
indifferent as to the question of first appearance, 
competition in roles, engagements and various 
other more intricate things, wdiich usually occupy 
the minds of these ladies; she had only one aim — 
her daughter’s marriage. She had done very little 
but drive away husbands all her life; first, of 


SEALED LIPS. 


S3 


course, on her own account, and in this interesting 
sport she had had less good luck than tact. 

She was a Roumanian by birth, of a very poor 
but honorable family. She was considered at 
eighteen to be the village beauty, which was not 
saying a great deal for her companions. She really 
had beautiful eyes, those large eyes in which one 
could see wavering, according to the situation, curi- 
osity, innocence, or vice. A trifle would give them 
effrontery or insolence. But save on rare occasions 
the one that was called the “pretty Martscha” 
knew how to avoid these trifles and keep her inno- 
cence, at least as far as looks were concerned. Her 
cheeks were too sunken, she was too tall and her 
bust too high to be graceful in the eyes of a con- 
noisseur ; but what completed her despair, for she 
knew as well as anybody the strength and the 
weakness of her moral and physical beauty, was 
her German mouth, a mouth which suppressed in 
this woman the greatest of all feminine charms — 
the smile. Instead of opening it, after the fashion 
of a flower, this mouth contracted, covering the 
teeth and gums, a venial fault in youth, but a mor- 
tal sin later. 

Martscha never knew her father, who died when 
she was several months old. Her mother had a de- 
voted heart but a weak mind, and succumbed to 
grief on discovering that her daugher was ignorant 
of all affection, justice, or morals when she wished 
to accomplish her end. These tendencies, essen- 


34 


SEALED LIPS. 


tially practical, had shone forth at the time of her 
first marriage with a French diplomat, a good, 
worthy fellow who had honored her with his 
choice, without having studied her like a book or 
turning her like a glove. This honest young fel- 
low, whose health was not strong and whose intel- 
ligence equaled his health, believed all that one 
could wish him to believe— that he was as strong as 
Hercules, as penetrating as a Metternich, and sure 
to attain some great embassy if only he had the 
chance to marry a woman cut out after the pattern 
of Marshal Guebriant’s wife. He believed many 
other things which required less strong faith, and 
the marriage accomplished, his mother-in-law 
buried, he took his bride to Paris, upon which she 
had counted more than all the rest. Unfortunately 
he died almost immediately — that is, two or three 
years sooner than the Roumanian had fixed upon. 
She was left without a home, money, position, or 
any other aid to entering society ; her only advan- 
tage was a very old name in the book of heraldry, 
but too new upon visting cards to be of advantage 
to her. 

Nevertheless she was far from being frightened 
at the task, for she thought herself still in Rou- 
mania, where every one cited her as the most 
beautiful of women. In Paris she saw immediately 
that she must come down a peg. Her face created 
so slight a sensation in places where she showed 
herself that she was at first painfully surprised. To 


SEALED LIPS 


35 


crown her troubles she had no money. To be brief, 
she married without the least enthusiasm a field 
officer in the infantry named Sauval, younger, but 
more substantial and intelligent than the diplomat 
who was removed so soon from her tender caresses. 
If she had been less pinched in circumstances she 
might have chosen better, but certainly she could 
have done much worse ; Sauval, according to what 
everybody says, was a superior officer. The young 
wife used every means to urge her husband’s pro- 
motion, and God knows they were numerous. Sev- 
eral persons who knew him say that she used them 
well. One of them took Sauval with him as brigade 
major when they formed our brave and powerful 
army of the Louvre, after our irreparable Eastern 
disasters. But decidedly the Roumanian brought 
bad luck to both of her husbands. 

It was learned one day that the major had lost 
his life at the battle of Orleans, under circum- 
stances that were always mysterious, for no eye 
witness could give the slightest detail of his death, 
caused by a frightful wound in his head. When 
the war ended SauvaPs patron left the army under 
pretense that a serious disease prevented him from 
continuing his career. This general was without 
near relations, and soon everybody had forgotten 
him. Martscha found herself for the second time 
in a bad situation, strangely complicated by this 
fact, she had a daughter nine years old, the future 
Adossides. 


36 


SEALED LIPS. 


Although she did not sin by excess of grief the 
Koumanian seemed for some time crushed by her 
husband’s death. She lived for several years in a 
very retired way in a little house that her husband 
owned in Bearn, seeing nobody and seeming to 
make it a point to be forgotten. Then suddenly she 
returned to Paris to educate her daughter, she said. 
In fact, the child had the very best masters, al- 
though her father died without leaving any fortune. 
But — details unknown — a large enough sum of 
money fell, if not from heaven, from the hands of 
some generous unknown, into Martscha’s hands. 
The widow and the orphan lived comfortably 
upon it. 

About this time Jenny became so beautiful that 
her mother realized that she had a future before 
her. Meanwhile Madame Sauval began to gain ex- 
perience, having recognized by numerous mortifica- 
tions that Paris was not Eoumania, and that she 
had counted too much at the beginning of her 
career upon her own intelligence and the foolish- 
ness of others. 

It was at this time that she met Godefroid, thanks 
to her lucky star, a star which always served her 
like a lantern. The composer was very lonely after 
Patrice’s departure, not yet having become accus- 
tomed to missing one of his greatest interests in 
life. On her side Madame Sauval saw that she was 
farther away than ever from the worldly position 
that she had been seeking for the past twenty 


SEALED LIPS. 


37 


years. Her revenues now consisted of vegetables, 
a few bags of corn, two acres of grapes that every 
third year gave atrocious wine. As for her capital, 
the notary had just given her the last cent of it. 

Madame Sauval had heard it repeated a hundred 
times that Jenny’s throat concealed a voice above 
the ordinary, and that even without hearing the 
young girl sing a man must indeed be hard to please 
who did not take pleasure in looking at her. When 
Godefroid first heard her sing he was so charmed 
that he thought that the Conservatory cage did not 
often hold such nightingales. Upon one word from 
him the Conservatory’s doors were opened to the 
one in whom the composer saw in advance a future 
diva for himself and his operettas. But he did not 
count upon Madame Sauval. 

“ My daughter sing in comic opera! The Opera 
may be well enough, and yet ” 

She nourished this thought, and while the others 
taught young Jenny vocalization, she taught Gode- 
froid to be ambitious in his profession. He was 
much astonished at first, and also a little obstinate, 
but the young man was soon grateful to his friend, 
because she did not think the Opera stage too large 
for him— that is to say for the young girl— for she 
counted upon one to tow the other along. This 
strong-minded woman did so well that “Constantin” 
was written, received by the directors, and the 
parts distributed to the artists. It goes without 
saying that Jenny had a role, and that this part. 


38 


SEALED LIPS . 


composed for her, was the most important one in 
the piece. This was the real but concealed motive 
for this “evolution of Godefroid toward high 
art,” which created so much of a sensation and 
raised so many favorable and disagreeable predic- 
tions which the future would soon determine. 


SEALED LIPS. 


39 


CHAPTER V. 

PATRICE RECEIVES A SHOCK. 

Jenny Sauval’s parlor, or rather her mother’s, for 
the Roumanian had kept the general management 
of their household, resembled less that of an artist’s 
than a bourgeois of medium grandeur. When 
Patrice and his friend made their first entrance the 
flowers about the room, in their showy baskets, re- 
called the night before. The furniture was neither 
luxurious nor in the most perfect taste, but it gave 
the room a respectable, almost severe, appearance. 
The costumes of the two ladies were in direct con- 
trast to each other, and would bewilder the most 
subtle eye. Mademoiselle Sauval wore one of those 
cloth dresses, closely fitted to the figure like a rid- 
ing-habit, a fashion introduced among us by the 
English. Her shoes had thick soles, but in which 
her pretty feet lost none of their beauty, showing 
that she was going for a walk, doubtless to preserve 
health. Madame Sauval, on the contrary, had an 
exhausted look and languishing pose ; she displayed 
loose draperies, carelessly attached, and wore Turk- 
ish slippers. One would never have imagined, to 
have seen them, that she was not the one who sang 
the night before five acts of an opera. 


40 


SEALED LIPS. 


This indolent person arose and showed some in- 
terest at seeing Godefroid enter followed by a 
stranger. But as soon as he pronounced the name 
O’Farrell, her curiosity became suspicious. For 
several years it had been her object to fill the place 
of this absent one whose history she had not been 
long in learning. This sudden return did not please 
her. 

While Godefroid talked with his protegee the 
mother took possession of the young man, so long 
and so well that, as he descended the stairs to go 
home, he could not have told you whether the 
Princess Adossides resembled her photograph or 
not. To make up for it Madame Sauval could have 
given his picture, both physical and moral, from 
his head to his heels. Ay, even his biography and 
that of his family, dating from the fall of the 
Stuarts. She decided that he had a warm, faithful, 
and sincere heart, that he was one of those poetical 
persons who seek all their lives to make the ideal 
rhyme with the reality, not without their smarting 
for it, of course. She decided at the same time that 
he was too good-looking, and had not money enough 
to be admitted there on an intimate footing, where 
there was a flower opening worthy of a prince with 
his millions. For the good lady did not intend that 
her daughter should sing until old, that she might 
earn money enough to buy her husband’s cigars. 
Nevertheless she was convinced that Patrice was a 
man to be humored on account of the influence that 


HEALED LIES. 


41 


he had over Antoine. There is no good diplomacy 
without confederates. 

When they reached the sidewalk of Rue de 
Vienna, where the singer lived, O’Farrell said to 
his friend, who was walking along, without speak- 
ing, wrapped up to his ears in his heavy coat : 

“We have just acted the quartette from “Faust,” 
the next time I hope that you will take care of 
Dame Martha, all the more as you seem to be a 
small-voiced tenor.” 

“The mother is a charming woman,” replied 
Godefroid. “You talked as if you were old friends.” 

“We talked together like a thief and an examin- 
ing magistrate. At least I suppose so, never hav- 
ing attended one of those fetes . I see now that I 
told all my history to this shrewd old woman and 
even some of yours. But so much the worse for 
you.” 

“I have no history,” sighed Godefroid. 

“If I was in your place, my friend, I have an idea 
that it would not be long before I had one. They 
say that these singers and dancers have bursts of 
gratitude that come quickly and go far.” 

“Again, once for all, leave these stories to those 
who do not know me.” 

“Where would be the harm? Have you turned 
abbe since my departure?” 

“No, but I have become a composer of operas, 
which amounts to about the same thing. If I was 
fool enough to choose one of my singers I should be 


42 


SEALED LLPS. 


lost. I should have against me, in one week, the 
manager, who would fear for his authority and his 
money, jealous comrades and patrons, who would 
be furious against this disloyal preference ; in one 
word, all the world would be against me.” 

“Very well,” said O’Farrell, giving his friend a 
side glance. “ Then you leave the field open to me. 
I will profit by it. As for me, thank God, I do not 
compose operas.” 

Antoine shrugged his shoulders without replying, 
and the two friends separated, one to return to 
Godefroid’s house, the other to leave tickets with 
some of the most celebrated critics and musicians. 
When he returned to his home the first thing that 
he saw was Patrice stretched out in an arm-chair, 
before a good fire, smoking. 

“You can rest,” growled he, as he renewed his 
overcoat. “You are lucky, I am obliged to work. I 
have letters to write that will take half the night.” 

“Master,” said O’Farrell, standing up, “your slave 
awaits your orders. Will you take me as secretary ?” 

“With pleasure. Did you imagine that I should 
require urging? Seat jmurself and reply to all this 
trash, to the people who complain because they did 
not have a seat at the first performance, and ask 
for one for to-night. I will take care of the others, 
the important ones, to which my autograph is indis- 
pensable. I must first write a half a dozen varia- 
tions on this theme: ‘Monsieur— or madame— “ Con- 


SEALED LIPS . 


43 


stantin” has succeeded, thanks to you; without 
your great talent it would have been a failure/ ” 

“Why have you not said this verbally to them?” 

“ I have said it and resaid it. But it is necessary 
that my effusions should be printed in to-morrow’s 
papers. It is the custom. Now, then, let us go 
about our work.” 

Soon their pens were flying over the paper. When 
it was time to go into the dining-room they had 
finished the greater part of their task. Godefroid 
was taciturn during the meal, and did little honor 
to the dishes. When the fruit was served he left 
the table, feeling ill at ease and wishing to open a 
window. But he could not accomplish the short 
distance, his limbs failed him, and had not O’Farrell 
caught him he would have fallen. He was barely 
able to reach a chair, when he lost consciousness. 

An hour later the Opera’s medical attendant left 
his patient perfectly conscious, but visibly ex- 
hausted. Patrice accompanied him to the door, 
and, lowering his voice, questioned him. The doc- 
tor replied by this question : 

“Are you a friend of Godefroid’s?” 

“ His best friend. I only returned yesterday after 
a long absence.” 

“Monsieur 0‘Farrell, without doubt? The dear 
master has often spoken to me of you.” 

Patrice made a sign in the affirmative. 

“Will you come to my house to-morrow morning 


44 


SEALED LIPS. 


early?” asked the physician; “we will talk together. 
But our friend must not suspect that we do so.” 

The next morning the two met as agreed upon. 

“ Monsieur,” said the dobtor, “ your presence 
takes away from me much anxiety. There is not 
in all Paris a man more isolated than Godefroid. It 
is his fault, but each one is privileged to arrange 
his life according to his own desires. Godefroid is 
seriously threatened, for this attack that you wit- 
nessed is not the first that he has had. He has 
worked too hard for twenty years, and now his 
heart works faster than his head; he will die of this 
trouble.” 

“What!” exclaimed Patrice, “is he doomed?” 

“There are, thank God, intervals between the 
attacks, and that is why I wished to talk to you. 
He must be moderate in his work, avoid all shocks, 
all troubles, diverting his mind from any he may 
have — I suspect he has some; his friends may pro- 
long his life. His love for you is very great and 
his confidence complete. I am ignorant of your 
plans, but if you could live within reach of him I 
should feel reassured, knowing your worth and 
who you are.” 

“Monsieur,” said Patrice, bowing, “you do not 
exaggerate as far as my friendship is concerned for 
Godefroid. As to my projects, they are vague. 
But do you not think that a good wife is a better 
remedy than a good friend?” 

“A good wife, most assuredly. But a druggist. 


SEALED LIPS. 


45 


who has this rare article for sale, is yet to be found. 
If you know of one you are ahead of me. Gode- 
froid marry ! He is not ill enough yet to try this 
dangerous remedy. A commonplace wife would 
stifle him with her coarse vulgarity. A coquette 
would kill him by inches with jealousy. A cross 
and crabbed one would cause his aneurism to burst, 
in consequence of excitement. An avaricious one 
would end his days by obliging him to work inces- 
santly. Good gracious ! Monsieur, let me tell you, 
if I knew of a distinguished, virtuous, good-tem- 
pered, and disinterested woman, the first thing that 
I would do would be to take her myself. As I am 
afraid I shall remain an old bachelor, and, as you 
love Godefroid, I should advise you to depend upon 
yourself to cure him. He will live some months 
longer, and you will have fewer regrets. Above all 
things, no shocks.” 


46 


HEALED LIPS. 


CHAPTER VI. 

CUPID’S ARROW ON ITS WAY. 

When he returned to his friend, Patrice found 
him up as usual. He seemed nervous, preoccupied, 
and walked up and down his room with a vacillat- 
ing step. 

“ Why did you rise so soon?” asked the young man. 
“There is nothing to prevent your resting now.” 

“I rest? And on the day of the second represen- 
tation? I would like to see you do it. To-day the 
real battle takes place, and this evening the field is 
not clear. Yesterday each one could applaud ac- 
cording to his pleasure. But now the critic has 
done his work, he has put up his signboard, erected 
his barriers, marked in advance the part left free 
for approbation, which is, I wish you to believe, 
parsimoniously measured. The public will obey, 
for it is prepared. You will see knitted brows or 
pleased looks in the places designated automati- 
cally. What torture for an artist!” 

“Artists are superior beings in appearance,” said 
O’Farrell, “but in reality marvelously incomplete. 
They are baffled by the struggles and reactions of 
life. You ought to be at this moment the happiest 
of men, and I should not be surprised if you had 
thought of suicide.” 


SEALED LIPS. 


47 


“Have you never thought of it?” asked Godefroid, 
without replying to the question. 

“Never. Suicide is vulgar, whatever you may 
think about it. Life is a struggle, and I like strug- 
gles. I have struggled with men, beasts, against 
the sun and against bad luck ” 

“Have you never struggled against yourself?” 

“No. Patrice and I agree on everything, like 
two fingers on a hand.” 

“ Then do not be in a hurry to say that you like 
struggles, for you do not know the worst of all.” 

“Well,” said O’Farrell, who wished to change 
the conversation, “ I see a pile of letters upon your 
table. I will continue my service. Let us work.” 

They opened letters, but were frequently inter- 
rupted by callers; the doctor, a strange impressario, 
a journalist who came for an interview, an attache 
who came to solicit a box for the secretary to give 
a friend. In the midst of all these distractions the 
morning passed. As the two friends were seated at 
table a note was handed Godefroid ; the sight of the 
writing even caused him to turn so pale that he 
looked as if he would faint again. 

“Jenny Sauval!” exclaimed he, tearing open the 
envelope. 

“Is that all?” observed Patrice; “why does it 
upset you so?” 

“It is— because now I fear everything. If she 
should write that she was hoarse!” 

The composer’s fears were groundless. 


48 


SEALED LIPS. 


“They tell me that you are ill,” wrote this young 
woman. “Oh, that I might go and take care of 
you. I hope that your indisposition is not serious. 
Send me word quickly, for I am waiting at your 
door in my carriage.” 

He jumped up with a bound. 

“I will go myself,” said he. 

But he stopped short, glancing at his morning 
costume. 

“ A trifle negligee to appear before the eyes of so 
beautiful a lady,” said Patrice, laughing. “Also, it 
is too cold for you to go out. I forbid it. I will go 
in your place ; my duties as secretary include this 
office.” 

Godefroid commenced to make some objections, 
but his friend was already half way down the 
stairs, bareheaded, like a pupil who is ordered to 
the office. Before the door was standing one of 
those coupes, with a plain exterior, and drawn by 
indefatigable horses, that certain livery stable 
keepers rent to people who wish to go fast and do 
not care to pay for silver-plated harnesses or top- 
boots for the coachman. 

The window was lowered, and in its small frame 
an adorable picture was seen, sober, like the work 
of some great artist, but finished and strikingly like 
her. For the first time O’Farrell could examine 
close by and at leisure the singer’s beauty. 

She had a small head, perfect ears, and a very 
low forehead, which may have been shortened a 


SEALED LIPS. 


49 


little by the way she dressed her hair. Her hair 
was blonde, frizzled on her forehead in little curls 
which gave her face a rebellious look, soon cor- 
rected by the black eyes with their sad and rather 
indifferent look. These grand orators, usually 
silent, reserved their flashes of genius for causes 
worthy of their eloquence. When it pleased those 
eyes to speak a light transformed them, giving 
them that liquid brilliancy of a May sun, which 
penetrates and softens everything, even the thick 
bark of oaks. 

Her nose w r as exquisitely modeled ; it might pos- 
sibly seem a trifle cold in its perfection ; the purely 
chiseled nostrils rarely deigned to leave their 
marble-like immobility. This countenance showed 
the highest intelligence, added to an indomitable 
will ; if she lacked anything it was animation. Her 
mouth alone gave life to the face ; a mouth always 
on the alert, sometimes mischievous, sometimes dis- 
appointed, sometimes cruel, but more readily serious 
than coquettish. The slightest shadow of vexation 
or ennui lent to the whole face a disdainful look, 
assisted by the slightly hard lines of her eyebrows. 

Nothing could be stranger than what her smile 
discreetly revealed. A curling of the lip to the 
right made a dimple in her round, rosy-tinted 
cheek, soft and savory as an infant’s. One could 
generally say that one-half of her face only deigned 
to smile. Fortunate was the one who chanced to 
see this splendor of pearls, when a gleam of gayety 


50 


SEALED LIPS. 


made her come out of her impassibility, in a com- 
plete expansion. 

This pretty head, quietly covered by a black 
velvet bonnet, with one dainty pink rose stuck in 
carelessly, seemed even smaller this morning, com- 
ing out of a thick brown fur which covered her up 
completely. 

When Patrice reached the coupe he was favored 
by the half smile at the service of simple mortals. 
It was all that he had a right to expect, and the 
half that she gave seemed so precious to him that 
he had no thought of regretting the other. He car- 
ried, on his own face, youth and good humor, and 
was very happy to tell her good news of his friend. 
He was also very agreeably surprised, to tell the 
truth, not to find Madame Sauval with her daugh- 
ter. The young woman could not help giving him 
an entire smile when she saw his smiling face. 

This was so perfectly dazzling that Patrice at 
once forgot everything ; the cold wind kissing his 
bare head, the passers-by, who were slackening 
their steps to enjoy their share of the fete , even the 
sick man who sent him. He had only one thought 
— to drink, without losing any of this luminous 
face, this sunny smile, or the fragrance of this 
beautiful woman. He had one of those speaking 
faces that tell all, and that it is impossible not to 
believe. If Jenny Sauval had lived until now with- 
out realizing that she was beautiful, her ignorance 
would have all disappeared before this young man’s 


SEALED LIPS. 


51 


intensely admiring gaze, whose clear blue eyes 
shone with an ardent French fire. One could read 
in them a respect for woman, the universal queen ; 
and Jenny received this homage without anger, but 
by a natural instinct she drew back into the coupe. 
As it was necessary to say something, she asked : 

“Godefroid is better, is he not? You would not 
look so happy if you did not have good news.” 

“ He is better, much better. His morning costume 
prevented his coming to you himself. I came as 
his ambassador, to lay his thanks at the feet of the 
most beautiful of princesses.” 

“Oh, no,” said the young woman, smiling for the 
second time, and the full smile, too. (Happy man 
this Patrice!) “Iam the most devoted of friends 
in the morning ; it is enough to wear the crown 
evenings.” 

“The crown rests all of the time on your head,” 
said the young man, gazing ardently at Jenny. 

“You will excuse me,” said the singer, after a 
short silence. “But the air is frosty and my poor 
throat does not belong to me. Say to your friend 
that I return home quite happy with the news that 
I carry away. I will do my best to cure the master 
this evening by a shower of bravos.” 

A faint glimmer of pink lighting the interior of 
the coupe, a delicate hand closing the window, a 
pretty nod of the head, and the carriage drove 
away, leaving Patrice on the sidewalk with his 
head in a whirl. A passer-by, who gazed at him 


52 


SEALED LIPS. 


with a mocking smile, awoke him from his reverie. 
He mounted the steps quickly, not realizing that 
he rubbed his eyes as if just awakening. 

“Well?” asked the composer, as he appeared. 

“ She is delighted to know that your indisposition 
is not serious.” 

“ What did she say?” 

“That she would sing like an angel this evening.” 

“Was her mother with her?” 

“No, thank the Lord!” 

“Why, thank the Lord?” 

“Because I cannot endure her.” 

“What has she done?” 

“ That would be the finishing stroke if she nad 
done anything. Have you never detested people 
who have never done anything?” 

Godefroid shrugged his shoulders without reply- 
ing, knowing that Patrice was subject to sudden 
likes and dislikes. Then he walked toward the 
dining-room, saying to himself, with a satisfied air : 

“He did not stay long.” 

He did not suspect, nobody suspected at that 
time, that Patrice had staid full long enough. 


SEALED LIPS. 


53 


CHAPTER VII. 

FLOATING RUMORS. 

The second representation of “Constantin” was an 
undoubted success, with the shade of reserve pre- 
dicted by Godefroid. The public had already 
entered into that path of abdication and renouncing 
of their tastes which our best critics make them 
walk in, taking great strides under the protecting 
and pedantic name of “Musical Education.” 

They still applauded, but kept their eyes upon 
their neighbors. The most advanced in their “edu- 
cation” tried to make an analysis. But enthusiasm 
and analysis do not pass through the same door, no 
more than love, which is enthusiasm for a beautiful 
woman. Nevertheless the women of to-day allow — 
what did I say, allow? — they wish to be analyzed. 
Let us hope that with this new system it does not 
happen to them as to operas by new composers, 
which rarely attain their hundredth representation. 

“At last,” said O’Farrell to his companion, when 
they started out for the theater, “ 1 shall go behind 
the scenes.” 

“But,” replied the composer, coldly, “you will be 
much better off in the audience, as far as seeing and 
hearing are concerned. I have procured a good 
seat for you.” 


54 


SEALED LIPS. 


The chair remained empty. Strong in his pre- 
rogative of intimate friend, the young man attached 
himself to Godefroid, and did not leave him until 
they were behind the scenes. There Patrice seated 
himself in a corner, and waited until Jenny should 
appear. All the rest had no interest for him. 

He was much disconcerted at first to see only 
the singer’s shoulders and to hear her voice so in- 
distinctly, but he consoled himself in thinking that 
he should be able to speak to her after the end of 
the act. While waiting he reveled in her slightest 
movements. It seemed to him that he heard her 
voice for the first time, and the applause came to 
him like the noise of rubbish falling in the distance. 

When the curtain was lowered the singer re- 
mained to exchange a few words with Godefroid. 
but while she was talking with him her eyes were 
seeking for another person. She soon saw Patrice 
lying in wait for her, as she must pass that way to 
go to her dressing-room. She asked him, as she 
gave him her hand : 

“Are you enjoying your evening?” 

He could see her then in all the glory of her 
beauty and superb costume, and he did not refrain 
from looking at her. It seemed to him that it was 
not Jenny Sauval, but a copy of her that he was 
looking at, not so young, and with harder features. 

The paint gave her face a red look, like an angry 
woman’s. Incapable of disguising his thoughts, 
O’Farrell replied to the young woman: 


SEALED LIPS, 


55 


“ If I did not enjoy the evening after the favor 
that you have shown me, I should indeed be hard to 
please. Nevertheless 1 would not change my 
morning for my evening.” 

She looked at him, giving him that eternal 
enigma — her half smile. 

“Well,” sighed she, “I see that the poor Ados- 
sides has not found grace in your eyes.” 

“My eyes remember too well Jenny Sauval not to 
regret her, even when I admire the princess. I am 
a poor flatterer, am I not?” 

“On the contrary,” said she, becoming very seri- 
ous. “You could not give me sweeter flattery. For 
I prefer the poor Jenny myself.” 

She left upon a sign from her mother, who was 
waiting for her with an opera cloak. Patrice 
watched her as she walked away, charmed with 
her exquisite grace. He wanted to go back to the 
house at once when she disappeared, for it seemed 
to him that the evening was ended, but he was very 
much mistaken, as we shall see. 

He remained, wishing to feast his eyes once more 
on this regal beauty. He would see her again, but 
surrounded and besieged with admirers, without 
his being able to speak to her. The curtain was 
lowered for the second time. Suddenly a crowd of 
dancers filled the stage, for the ballet was in the 
next act. O’Farrell was a little embarrassed in the 
midst of this swarm of tarlatan skirts and pink 
limbs, when a hand was placed on his shoulder. 


56 


SEALED LIPS. 


“Do not do anything to disgrace me,” said Gode- 
froid, taking up his paternal role. 

One of the young girls heard him. In less than 
five minutes the report spread about that this good- 
looking, tall young man was the composer’s nephew. 
From thence it was to be seen with which he would 
be “foolish,” but he was notin the mood for it. 
Naturally they became excited ; not modest enough* 
to imagine that he could be inattentive to all their 
charms, these silly creatures declared that the new- 
comer was timid. Immediately sweet looks and 
jokes were showered upon him. What could he do 
but show that he was not a coward? To tell the 
truth, he managed it very well, until Jenny Sauval, 
coming upon the stage, saw this other Telamaque 
sporting with a band of nymphs. She stopped sud- 
denly at the sight, when her mother asked : 

“ What is it, my dear?” 

“Nothing; my train was caught.” 

But Patrice, at the approach of his idol, forgot all 
the rest, and only had eyes for the radiant Ados- 
sides whose dress was not caught again. At the 
end of the act Godefroid motioned to him that he 
wished to speak to him : 

“Will you do me the favor to go out and stroll 
around the lobbies and listen to what is said about 
the piece?” 

Five minutes later O’Farrell was mixing with the 
crowd of dress-coats. During his six years’ absence 
Patrice’s long silky, blonde beard had had time to 


SEALED LIPS. 


57 


grow upon his face, so that it was not easy for his 
best friends to recognize him. Noticing one of his 
old college friends, he offered his hand to him : 

“You have forgotten me?” 

“A little, I am afraid,” said the other. “But if 
you would only tell me your name ” 

“Patrice O'Farrell.” 

“What! looking like a globetrotter! Ah! it is 
true. You have returned from Australia, I believe?” 

“No, but from Cambodia.” 

“It is the same thing.” 

“Oh, exactly, for a Parisian’s geography. And 
you, what are you doing?” 

“Journalist, my dear friend.” 

Patrice made a low bow. 

“ I could not have fallen into better hands then. 
What do they say of ‘Constantin?’ ” 

“Ah! Yes. I know that you are interested in 
Godefroid. You were always yoked together.” 

“ Pretty expression. But tell me, what do they 
say in the lobbies?” 

“There are differences of opinion. The old fel- 
lows are delighted, and declare that the good old 
days of ‘ La Muette ’ have returned. The new 
school make some reservations. If you want my 
opinion, I should say that your friend had made a 
mistake in abandoning light opera. It is true that 
he has gained a pretty woman by the evolution.” 

“What?” 

“Yes, most certainly. Have you not heard the 


58 


HEALED LIPS , . 


story? How long ago since you returned to Paris?” 

“Only day before yesterday, and I have seen 
nobody.” 

“Well, you have seen Sauval, I think? Why, my 
good fellow, for several years Godefroid has brought 
her up tenderly, not for her beautiful voice alone, 
you understand. But Sauval, who understands her 
business, wished to be heard. ‘Give me an opportu- 
nity to be heard at the Opera, and we will see.’ 
She never gave him more than the tip of her finger 
until the engagement was signed.” 

“And now?” 

“Now everything is all love and sentiment. But 
this old fox of a Godefroid conceals his happiness. 
Has he said nothing even to you?” 

“No,” replied O’Farrell, with sorrowful amaze- 
ment. “Perhaps it is only a story.” 

“It is the true story, my friend. Come, I will 
convince you.” 

The good creature called a brother journalist who 
was passing. 

“Munier, one word. Who is Sauval’s friend 
now?” 

“Sauval’s?” replied the reporter. “Her discov- 
erer, of course. Everybody knows that. However, 
Prince Kemeneff was very devoted, and I believe 
the musician had to hurry and make a last desper- 
ate effort. That is the story this evening.” 

“Well,” asked the journalist of Patrice, when 
they were alone, “do you believe me now? Do you 


SEALED LIPS. 


59 


want other proofs? You must admit that your 
friend would have been very silly to have let such 
an opportunity pass to get back his outlay. For 
they say that he paid for her musical education.” 

“He would be very foolish. All the same, I 
should never have thought him so practical. Well, 
he must have developed since my absence.” 

O’Farrell was less calm than he affected to be, 
and did not push his investigations farther, but re- 
turned to the green room. 

“Well, what do they say?” asked the composer. 

“What do they say? Oh, there was only one 
opinion as to you. They congratulate ” 

“I thought the audience was a little cold.” 

“Wait; you did not let me finish my sentence. 
They congratulate, they envy you for having one of 
the prettiest women in all Paris. Why in the devil 
did you make such a mystery with me? In the 
future do not take me as your chamberlain.” 

He walked off, leaving his friend heart-sick at 
these cruel words. Just then Jenny Sauval went 
on to the stage, but he had no wish to see or hear 
her. She made him shudder. All was repugnant 
to him in this great clique, where everything is paid 
for art, genius, talent, and beauty above alt. 

“Well,” said he to himself, as he walked through 
the long, low corridor that led to the actors’ exit, 
“amuse yourselves, fools.” 

In the little court a group of dancers were watch* 
ing with an envious eye some of their friends, who 


60 


HEALED LIPS. 


came with them but were now installed in satin, 
lined coupes, rolling back with all the airs of 
duchesses. 

“Here is the little relative,” exclaimed one young 
girl, still unprovided with a carriage. “All alone 
and so late! Beware of the silly things.” 

Then all of them burst into laughter. 

“You saucy little baggages you !” returned 
Patrice, whose timidity had all disappeared. “How, 
then, who comes to supper? Ah! you are the ones 
who are afraid now, are you?” 

They ought to have been afraid, for the gentle- 
man, in giving this unceremonious invitation, had 
his hands on his hips and a triumphant countenance 
that looked more like a musketeer’s than a timid 
young man’s. His eyes sparkled as Robinson 
Crusoe’s must have done upon leaving his island 
and first seeing a white face. 

The dancers, like our fathers, the Franks, feared 
nothing ; of the four who chanced to be there, four 
accepted the supper, leaving until later their ex- 
planations to those whom it concerned. Patrice 
was not unlucky. One of his guests was pretty, 
and two were bright and witty. He took the pretty 
one’s arm, and the rest followed together; it was 
only a short distance to the Cafe de la Paix. 

Some moments later these girls commenced their 
supper, and ate as girls do who have only had a 
poor dinner. Patrice, on his part, was contented to 
drink, having something heavier in his stomach 


HEALED LIPS. 


61 


than a dinner of three courses. He emptied several 
glasses before he could put out of his mind the be- 
setting vision of two, dark, shining eyes, sweet and 
chaste under a cloud of blonde hair and the shadow 
of a velvet bonnet. It semed to him that he could 
see those eyes become sad in proportion as he 
drank, but sweeter still. Ah, if he could hope that 
this clear purity did not lie ! How he wished that 
he could leave the table and go into the night air 
and cool his throbbing brow. 

What a stupid fool he was not to know that she 
belonged to Godefroid? He to come from Cambodia 
for this! He continued to empty his glass while 
joyous laughter surrounded him. Soon a mist 
floated between his eyes and hers. Then, like a 
last flash of a beacon light, the sweet and charming 
face disappeared. At last Jenny Sauval is for- 
gotten. 


SEALED LIPS. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

RECONCILIATION. 

The next morning a pale, aged, weak, and bowed 
man was sitting in his arm-chair reading the jour- 
nals, and dropping them one by one on the floor 
with a nervous and disdainful smile. Godefroid 
had not closed his eyes that night. Now he was 
waiting for the return of that prodigal child whose 
last words rang in his ears. He was astonished at 
the bitterness of certain moments in life ; everything 
failed him, everything made him suffer. His un- 
grateful friend had turned against him, and, to 
speak in the language of the trade, the press was 
ill-natured. 

He felt the first touch of old age, which is called 
doubt of one’s self. He went over the course of his 
whole life, so smiling when one follows the course 
of the rising sun, so sad when darkness settles over 
the landscape. 

“Where am I going?” thought he. “ What fate 
awaits me? What is before me at the turn of the 
road? What remains for me to do in this life? Art 
has escaped me, and my last effort will be this ‘Con- 
stantin’ that is not appreciated. Friendship out- 
rages and abandons me. Jenny Sauval! Alas! in 


SEALED LIPS . 


63 


wishing to help her I have only compromised her. 
In wishing to make her my daughter I have made 
only trouble for her, and tortured my life.” 

The door opened, and O’Farrell appeared, calmed, 
refreshed, and purified by the long bath he had just 
taken. He seated himself before Godefroid, but did 
not offer his hand. 

“Two words only,” said he. “Last night I spoke 
to you like a boor. Your secrets are your own; 
nothing obliges you to tell them to me. I see in 
your eyes that I have wounded you deeper still than 
I thought. Forgive me, and let us part friends as 
before.” 

“Part!” groaned Godefroid. 

“ It is better. Do you think that I can consent to 
live at your expense? Even without my sudden 
burst of passion, which was more silly than culp- 
able, I swear that to-morrow I should have ceased 
to be your guest. I shall always be your friend. I 
swear it by my mother’s picture.” 

Godefroid raised his beautiful, artistic head, and 
looked O’Farrell in the eye: 

“Then you believe in oaths?” asked he. 

“Yes, because I believe in God and honor. But 
if there is ever an oath respected in this world, it 
will be the one that I have just taken. It is truly 
sacred between us two, my friend, for while we 
both live the memory of the saint who looks down 
upon us will admonish me whom she loved so much 
and bless you who have replaced her so well.” 


64 


HEALED ULS. 


The composer arose, and taking off the velvet 
toque which covered the crown of his head, and 
pointing toward the picture, said : 

“ Listen to me now. I swear by your mother’s 
picture that Jenny Sauval has never received but 
one kiss from me, the one that I gave her before 
three hundred persons the evening she sang so 
beautifully in my poor ‘Constantin’ ” 

Godefroid stopped, strangely troubled. Patrice 
attributed it to the artist’s pride, equally proud of 
his pupil and his work. He, too, to tell the truth, 
was strangely agitated by what he had just heard. 

“Do you believe me?” insisted the composer. 

“Certainly,” sighed the young man; “what a pity 
you did not say this sooner.” 

Godefroid looked at him surprised and a little 
suspiciously. 

“Mon Dieu /” explained Patrice. “ Do not imagine 
that Mademoiselle Sauval’s conduct interests me 
particularly. But I regret having outraged a 
woman whom you respect.” 

He regretted, above all things, the supper, but he 
kept this secret to himself, a thing that never hap- 
pened before; his adopted father did not know all 
that he was thinking of. 

“ What in the devil did she ever go on the stage 
for?” growled he. 

“Iam the one that caused her to do it,” said Gode- 
froid, with a contrite look. “Ah, my friend, you 
cannot understand how I suffer, I who have de- 


SEALED LIPS. 


65 


ceived this noble young girl as I deceived myself. 
Yes, I deceived her and her mother also.” 

“Oh, her mother!” said Patrice, shrugging his 
shoulders. 

“I pointed out to this child art, success, and glory 
crowning her pure brow. I dreamed of seeing her 
famous now and memorable in the future, so high 
in everybody’s esteem that not a suspicion could 
touch her. I have been unlucky in my dreams the 
last three days.” 

“ So you allow yourself to be disconcerted by the 
talk of envious people and fools?” 

“ If you knew what precautions I have taken ! I 
have not been to her home three times a year. 
When the mother came to see me she came alone.” 

“ I wish you much pleasure ; I know the charms 
of her conversation.” 

“ And to think that this stupid public slanders us 
all three, mother, daughter, and myself! tt is to 
be hoped that they will always be ignorant of this 
mud that is thrown upon them, and from which no 
arm can protect them without polluting them 
more.” 

He spoke with so much heat that O’Farrell was 
suspicious. 

“Why do you not marry her?” asked he, point- 
blank. “ That would be the best way to get even 
with these blockheads.” 

The composer dropped into his chair, as if sud- 
denly frightened. 


HEALED LIPS. 


“ Do you think that I look like a man who should 
marry?” said he, feigning to laugh; “I to marry a 
young girl with such beauty and such a future, and 
whose father I might be? You have never looked 
at her, then?” 

“ Then take a wife not as young and less beauti- 
ful. But marry. The more I observe you the more 
I see that you have lived alone too long. Solitude 
is a burden that crushes one soon ; you are bending 
already.” 

“Yes, my task is heavy, but a wife could aid me 
but little. What I need is a less cumbersome sup- 
port, without nerves, migraine, or rustling petti- 
coats, a sort of confidant ; sharing my secrets which 
are not numerous, replying to my letters which are 
more so, recopying my semiquavers, above all to 
wind up the clock when it runs down. Say now, 
you who wish a situation, what do you say to this 
one?” 

A deep flush extended over O’Farrell’s face, 
growing deeper and deeper. 

“ You forgot to name the salary,” said he, with a 
forced laugh. 

“ I forgot that I was speaking to a descendant of 
the Stuarts, that is what I forgot. Truly we cannot 
open our mouths without hurting each other’s feel- 
ings. Good gracious ! what has happened between 
us since your return?” 

There had come between them what separates 
the closest of friends — a woman 


SEALED LIPS. 


67 


“This is what comes of drinking too much cham- 
pagne!” said Patrice between his teeth, trying to 
excuse himself. 

“No,” insisted the other, “I am the one in the 
wrong. In my turn I say to you, forgive me and let 
us part. I prevent you from going your own way 
in the world. Go; leave me to work like a dog, 
stupid fool that I am. But at first we must have a 
settlement ; I still owe a large sum of money to 
Countess O’Farrell’s heir.” 

Godefroid stopped. He could say no more. His 
chest heaved. A coughing fit seized him. Drops 
of perspiration stood on his brow. He seemed as 
unhappy and discouraged as a man could be. 
Patrice was frightened, remembering what the 
physician had said to him the day before. He ex- 
tended his hand in his frank way, and said: 

“Give me your hand, and may the devil take me 
if I ever leave your house unless chased out by an 
officer. Let us forget this villainous morning. 
Come, old friend, what shall your secretary com- 
mence his work with?” 

“This,” replied Godefroid, opening his arms to 
O’Farrell. 

When the hour arrived for the third representa- 
tion of “Constantin” Patrice excused himself on the 
pretext that he was too lazy to change his clothes 
and spend four hours in a theater. He was afraid, 
by showing so little eagerness, to hurt his friend’s 
vanity as composer, but it was not so. 


68 


SEALED LIPS. 


“You are right; rest yourself,” said Antoine. “I 
will tell you all about it. I would like to be in your 
place and go to bed early.” 

One person that evening looked in vain for 
Patrice O’Farrell. She looked in the green room, 
also into the vast audience filled with human faces 
almost to the roof. She looked for him among the 
crowd of ballet dancers, for Jenny’s mother had 
told her all about Patrice’s high doings, and this 
story caused the young woman much surprise 
mixed with a strange sorrow. 

The Roumanian tried during the evening to ex- 
cite Godefroid’s indignation against his friend. “A 
fine beginning on his arrival,” said she. “You who 
talked as if he were a little saint.” * 

“ I did not call him a great saint,” responded the 
composer, laughing. “When one is only twenty- 
eight years old and has just returned from Cam- 
bodia ” 

“And it is a crazy creature like this that you pre- 
sent to my daughter and to me ! A beautiful ac- 
quaintance for two women in our position!” 

“ Good gracious, madam, I am not blaming you 
for being severe ; but really, if you can only speak 
to angels furnished with wings— why, you must end 
your acquaintance with my future companion for 
life.” 

“What!” exclaimed she, “are you going to live 
together?” 

Godefroid, with that propensity for confidences 


SEALED LIPS. 


69 


that all weak men have, had become accustomed 
to telling Madame Sauval all the little incidents 
connected with his life, so hastened to give her an 
account of his interview with Patrice — leaving out 
one part, and the agreement which had followed it. 

The clever woman, after listening attentively to 
the story, took Godefroid’s hands in her own, and 
giving him a knowingly tender look, she sighed: 

“Ah! you have a great heart.” 


70 


SEALED LIPS . 


CHAPTER IX. 

A RE-INTRODUCTION INTO SOCIETY. 

About this time Godefroid received a note from 
the Baroness de Pragneres. The three gifts that a 
woman desires the most in this world are wealth, 
beauty, and wit, and they were very unevenly dis- 
tributed with this woman. She had wealth in pro- 
fusion, wit in a certain degree, and was perfectly 
ugly. She was at heart an excellent woman, full 
of good intentions, which she loosened from time to 
time on people, after the fashion of the fable of the 
bears and the stones. Having plenty of leisure 
time, for she had no children, no lovers, and very 
little of a husband, she was the first to invent that 
idea of fashionable women which makes such rav- 
ages now. Sometimes she exhibited in the salon a 
terra-cotta bust of her chambermaid, then a portrait 
of her dog. She sometimes had a production of her 
own played at her house by actors from the 
Francais. Another day she would slip in between 
one of Saint-Saen’s concertos and a romance of 
' Gounod’s, a serenade of her own. She wrote for 
the journals on society topics and for reviews on 
archaeological questions. At last her first novel 
was announced for an early date. 


SEALED LIPS. 


71 


“What a pity,” say the artists, “that she under- 
takes painting, music, and prose! She is a perfect 
lady to the tips of her fingers.” 

“Poor baroness,” sigh the worldly ones, “her 
house is like a Montmartre beer saloon. But she 
has the right to be original ; she is an artist. One 
sees such amusing people in her drawing-room.” 

This is what she wrote to Godefroid : 


“ Dear Master : You have always refused my invi- 
tations. Do not refuse this, for I have a surprise for 
my guests. Have no fear ; you shall not be asked 
to play ; you will not be asked to assist any un- 
known star. You can leave at midnight. I add, to 
make you decide the question, that you will not 
hear one word of my music. There will be but few 
guests. You will find me, Thursday evening, be- 
tween two lamps in my morning gown. If you do 
not come, I shall believe that your success at the 
Opera has made you feel that we common mortals 
are beneath you.” 

A postscript said : 

“ I anticipate also seeing the young gentleman” 
(here there was an erasure), “the celebrated trav- 
eler of whom everybody is talking, and who is with 
you like a shadow. Present this shadow to me; 
everybody says that he is very agreeable to see and 
hear.” 

Patrice could not help laughing at the postscript. 

“ Poor woman ! She has been unable to learn the 
name of this celebrated traveler of whom every- 
body is talking. Shall you go?” 

“ Would you like to?” 


72 


SEALED LIPS. 


“ Let us go ; it will be my re-entrance into civilized 
society.” 

On Thursday evening the two friends found the 
baroness in full dress at the entrance to a suite of 
brilliantly lighted parlors, filled with a compact 
crowd. 

“Let us go away,” said the composer; “this is 
what she calls morning dress and two lamps. They 
will tell her ” 

But a sentinel was lying in wait for Godefroid ; 
for the lady of the house pounced upon him even in 
the antechamber; he was seized and handcuffed 
by an opulent arm, loaded with numberless brace- 
lets, and made a sensational entrance followed by 
the faithful Patrice. In the back room, in the holy 
of holies reserved for persons of note, Jenny Sauval 
occupied the center of a group of men, who vied 
with each other for a glance from her eyes. 

She was sitting upright in her chair, with the sad 
look of an unthroned queen ; she talked very little 
and gave her perpetual unfinished smile ; she was 
simply dressed in black satin and jet; nevertheless 
every eye in the room was turned upon her. All 
the other invited guests of the baroness were van- 
quished by her charms. They tired their eyes study- 
ing Jenny’s hair and the way it was dressed, the 
harmonious line traced by the dark goods against 
the milky whiteness of her neck and arms, even the 
draping of her skirt. The dress was not new, and 
no famous hair-dresser had twisted her hair so care- 


SEALED LIPS. 


73 


lessly on the top'of her head. Madame Sauval was 
seated beside Jenny and enjoying her daughter’s 
triumph, without envy, but not without regret. 

“ If I had had what she has, or she had had what 
I have,” sighed she to herself. “This child will 
never profit by anything.” 

At the same time, she glanced through the rooms 
looking for the one that she wished above all to see. 

All the baroness’ guests, as well as that lady her- 
self, would have been surprised to learn, who had, 
if not organized this soiree, inspired it, and more 
astonished yet to know that its sole object was to 
show Jenny Sauval, off the stage, to Prince Keme- 
neff. It little concerned Madame de Pragneres and 
her artistic pretensions. It concerned Godefroid 
and his operas, as well as all the operas in the 
world. It concerned Jenny’s voice and musical 
reputation. What Martscha wished was to show 
that her daughter was of the material that prin- 
cesses were made of, genuine ones of course. No- 
body would have said to the contrary that evening. 

Mademoiselle Sauval arose as the baroness ap- 
proached towing along Godefroid. The meeting 
between the author of “Constantin” and the inter- 
preter of his work did not lack picturesqueness. 

An ovation broke out ; it may have been sponta- 
neous, or it may have been inspired by the lady of 
the house, who loved “effects.” 

As he raised his eyes to his pupil’s, Godefroid 
saw that she was troubled and turned pale; she 


74 


SEALED LIPS. 


looked ahead of her with a mixture of haughty sur- 
prise and pain. She was looking at somebody; 
her white bosom heaved with some powerful emo- 
tion. She was looking at Patrice, there could be no 
mistake about it. 

The baroness had dropped the composer’s arm to 
clap her hands with the rest. She kept it up to her 
heart’s content, exclaiming in her shrill voice : 

“Do you see, dear master! What do you think of 
my surprise?” 

The “dear master” seemed more surprised than 
pleased; he looked lugubrious, but he replied, as 
he bowed before the cantatrice : 

“Why should I not be pleased to see mademoiselle 
applauded and feted thus, when she merits it?” 

“Look at her,” said the baroness, accustomed to 
do the honors for herself and all who came to her 
house. “She is as excited as a child, and it becomes 
her. She could sing with her e} r es if she should lose 
her voice.” 

The composer looked at Jenny’s eyes; in reality 
they seemed to sing, but the poor man was obliged 
to smile although shivering as he thought of this 
phrase : 

“Pardon, my comrade, this serenade is not for 
you.” 

Patrice, in his turn, bowed before Jenny, who 
barely returned his salutation. He had not, it must 
be admitted, a conscience so pure to-night that he 


SEALED LIPS. 


75 


felt he had a right to blame her for her cold greet- 
ing. 

“Probably,” thought he, “some charitable creat- 
ure has told her some of the gossip on her account, 
and she has heard of the part that I so foolishly 
acted. But should I be obliged to lose my arm, I 
must obtain her pardon. I need her smile.” 

First of all it was prudent to know the extent of 
the evil. There was an empty chair beside Jenny’s 
mother. Patrice seated himself in it, although her 
air was even less gracious than her daughter’s. 

“ We do not see you at the opera any more, mon- 
sieur,” said the lady. 

The young man replied : 

“1 have just returned from a long voyage, which 
fatigued me very much, so I go to bed early.” 

“Not every evening, at least, so I hear,” replied 
the Roumanian. “The proverb, birds of a feather 
flock together, is not always true. You are the com- 
panion of the steadiest man in the world, and while 
he prefers music, it is dancing that charms you.” 

“Dancing!” exclaimed the astonished O’Farrell. 

“ Or at least dancers. At the Opera, the other 
evening, all the talk was of your generosity.” 

This time Patrice understood. His crime then 
was not calumny, but a certain supper, the other 
night, in not the most edifying company. That, 
then, was what had clouded her charming face. At 
this thought he blushed less from confusion thau 


76 


SEALED LIDS. 


from joy. But without being offended on this occa- 
sion, with his habitual frankness, he replied : 

“ Alas ! madam, there are a hundred reasons why 
I could not be generous, even to dancers. All that 
is pure invention. I could not tell you the names 
of three of these young women.” 

“That is not what they say.” 

“Ah! madam, 1 swear to you; but what will 
they not say in those frightful greenrooms? I have 
not the pretension to tell you, for since the first day 
I had the honor to meet you, I could not help pity- 
ing a woman with your tastes, education, and man- 
ners, condemned to frequent such a place.” 

“ It is my poor daughter that you must pity, mon- 
sieur. She is so little fitted for the stage. Others 
become teachers; she has become a singer, or 
rather — but it would be bad taste to blame our 
friend Godefroid, who urged her to this step. Nat- 
urally, he sees nothing but music. What a calam- 
ity it is to lose one’s fortune!” 

“I know something about it,” said Patrice, laugh- 
ing. 

“You have met with great reverses, then?” ques- 
tioned the good soul, captivated by all this wise 
diplomacy. 

“They could not have been more complete. A 
man can get over such difficulties, but a 
woman ” 

“And above all one that has been brought up like 


SEALED LIPS. 


77 


my daughter. The daughter of a hero, who would 
have been to-day the pride of the army. 

“Poor Jenny!” continued the widow, prompt to 
shun any talk about SauvaTs death. “So proud, so 
honest, and so fond of home life. She is made for 
the paint and tinsel of the stage as much as you are 
to say mass. And I, monsieur; at my age, with 
my past, to be obliged to pass long hours in the 
midst of what is repugnant to me, with mothers 
whose dresses I cannot even touch without a shud- 
der, and gentlemen who hardly bow to me. I, who 
have had a salon, a chateau ” 

Madame Sauval paused for breath, and Patrice 
profited by this pause to pour balm upon this 
wounded heart. He would have preferred to have 
talked wth Jenny, rather than the mother, but he 
had no choice. The obstinacy with which the lat- 
ter kept the back of her head toward him showed 
him that he was in full disgrace. 

“I will conquer the mother first,” said he to him- 
self. “Jenny is worth ten minutes of hypocrisy.” 

“ It will be prudent to get this fellow interested in 
my business,” thought the Roumanian. “He has 
influence with Godefroid, and he is necessary to us 
so long as there is no other.” 

Meanwhile Prince Kemeneff was late in showing 
himself, a delay which made Madame Sauval ner- 
vous. It was getting late. Baroness de Pragneres 
with excuses, prayers, and numberless oratorical 
precautions, persuaded the young cantatrice to sing 


78 


HEALED LIPS . 


for them something from “ Constantin,” accom- 
panied by Godefroid. As she finished, in the midst 
of enthusiastic applause, more or less sincere, for 
neither the composer’s work or the artist’s voice 
gained anything by being transported into this 
crowd — grave news spread through the rooms. 

A sudden coating of very slippery ice had covered 
the ground. It was impossible for carriages to 
move about; accidents were feared. They cited 
as among the victims Kemeneff, or rather one of his 
horses, that circumstances had obliged the prince 
to hold a consultation with his veterinary instead 
of basking in the smiles of Jenny or her mother. 

The antechamber was already filled with foot- 
men, who had come to tell their masters that their 
carriages had not been able to leave the stables. 
The vestibule was filled ; each one thought to get 
home as soon as possible with no broken bones. 

O’Farrell proved to be the most heroic of all the 
men, perhaps the cleverest. While Godefroid took 
charge of his pupil, he attached himself to his older 
companion with the care of a lover. They all 
started off on foot. On account of the serious dan- 
ger it was necessary to walk very slowly in the 
midst of an icy mist. At about the end of five 
minutes, Godefroid, who was ahead with Jenny, 
stopped, discouraged. 

“What can we do?” cried he. “It will be half an 
hour before we can reach Rue de Vienne. The least 


SEALED LIES. 


79 


that can happen to you, mademoiselle, is complete 
loss of voice for fifteen days.” 

“If mademoiselle will allow me to do so,” said 
Patrice, “ she shall be at home in ten minutes. I 
will undertake it.” 

“How can you do it?” asked all three, sick at 
heart. 

“ It is very simple. You will see.” 

The young man had already abandoned Madame 
Sauval to her fate, and being near a seat on the 
Boulevard Malesherbes, where the little band had 
rested for a moment, he sat down there for a few 
seconds, and then returned, walking with as sure a 
foot as if on a carpet. 

“Come, mademoiselle,” said he, taking Jenny’s 
arm. 

Nobody protested, as is the case when a man of 
will announces his purpose. The young people 
moved away rapidly; it seemed as if they had 
wings as they sped by the gas-lights, which reflected 
their figures like a mirror. After a few threatening 
slips of his companion, the young man, whose step 
was as firm as a rock, took a sudden resolution, and 
putting his arm about the young girl’s waist, he 
almost carried her along with him. 

“Monsieur,” said she, more confused than angry, 
“you do not think what you are doing.” 

“No,” replied he, slackening his pace, “I do not. 
I am only thinking of getting you out of this as 
quickly as possible. Have confidence in me.” 


80 


SEALED LIPS. 


She said no more, for it was not the time nor the 
place to discuss ^natters. Patrice, after what she 
had heard, was not precisely worthy of confidence. 
He, suspecting her hostile feeling, asked : 

“Do you not feel perfectly safe with me?” 

“That depends upon how you mean it,” said she. 
“I have confidence in your strength and dex- 
terity ” 

All at once she noticed that Patrice was going 
in his stocking feet. 

“ Mon Dieu!” exclaimed she. “You are playing 
with your life. Stop — I will not ” 

He replied, resisting a strong desire to press her 
to his heart : 

“You need not be uneasy as to my life. I would 
give it to you to spare you one hour’s suffering. 
Believe me, I am devoted to you as a brother, and 
devoted to you alone.” 

“To me alone? to me alone?” said she, as she knit 
her beautiful eyebrows. 

“I swear it to you,” protested he. “If any one 
has ever said to the contrary, it is an odious false- 
hood. You must have confidence in me. If you 
could know how much I— I would like your friend 
ship.” 

“You merit it this evening,” said she, sincerely 
moved. “But who knows? perhaps now you are 
thinking of your friend Godefroid. How awkward 
it would be for him if I could not sing to-morrow 
night.” 


SEALED LIPS. 


81 


“ Nobody could be quicker consoled than I, if you 
could never sing there again in your life. My 
whole being is irritated when I see you appear on 
the stage, and they offer you their admiration— 
what a sacrilege for them to deign to applaud you 
and judge you, as if they were worthy to raise their 
eyes to your beauty.” 

‘-‘Then that is why?” said she, hesitatingly. 

“Yes, mademoiselle, that is why I no longer go to 
the Opera. I shall go now less than ever. I wish I 
could forget the stones of that hateful edifice.” 

“You are a strange man,” said she. “I never 
imagined you like this. You are the first one who 
has understood me. How does it happen? "We 
have known each other such a short time.” 

“ It is not true, but it seems to me that I have 
always belonged to you. I slept a long time, be- 
lieving that this sleep was life. One day, like a 
slave awakened by his mistress’ golden slipper, I 
came out of my dream. I trembled at your glance, 
and I find that I wear fetters that I have never 
known before. How is it? Why do I belong to 
you? I know nothing about it. All that I can say 
is, that you possess me, that you can use me accord- 
ing to your fancy— that is, even if I wished to fly 
away, the very next hour would find me at your 
feet with still heavier chains.” 

“You speak like a man who had tried the experi- 
ment,” said she, thinking of the famous supper. 

He was going to lie again. Let those throw the 


82 


HEALED LIES . 


stone who have not on their conscience any sin 
against the holy truth, that two beautiful black 
eyes have made them commit. They had reached 
Rue de Vienne, and Jenny, who was not a child, 
knew perhaps that people win sometimes by not 
letting certain cases come to trial. 

“Now,” said she, “hurry, and God grant that you 
will not be ill. I cannot thank you for what you 
have just done. But we are even, for I forgive you 
all the foolish things that you have just said. I 
will attribute it to the cold. Only remember that 
slavery is abolished, above all in Rue de Vienne.” 

She had rung the bell; the door opened. She 
entered, but before closing it, she said: 

“But friendship still exists. We shall meet 
again.” 

Only one little hand was visible of the person who 
spoke. Patrice carried it to his lips, and was de- 
liciously surprised to find that it was ungloved, and 
the hand very far from being cold. 

When Madame Sauval joined her daughter she 
was surprised to find her warm and comfortable 
in her dressing-gown, with rosy cheeks and shining 
eyes. 

“Good gracious! here is a child in fora fever!” 
exclaimed this model of a mother. There are many 
kinds of fever ; a certain English proverb says that 
fevers are like children, because they resemble each 
other at the time of their birth. 


SEALED LIPS . 


83 


CHAPTER X. 

A STARTLING ASSERTION. 

The other did not get out of their difficulties so 
well that night. 

Patrice reached home, he hardly knew how. As 
he sat dreaming he was aroused from his reverie 
by a noise at the door. He went into the ante- 
chamber to receive his friend. He hardly recog- 
nized Godefroid in the figure that stood motionless 
in the dim light without the strength to take off his 
coat. Its weight seemed too heavy for him. The 
perspiration stood on his forehead, and his teeth 
chattered with the cold. Patrice had only to glance 
at his friend to forget the ethereal world in which 
his thoughts were roaming a few moments before. 

“Quick!” exclaimed he. “Come to bed! We 
must waken Baptiste, and have your bed warmed.” 

Godefroid entered the room first, but did not seem 
to hear these words. With a wavering step he 
crossed the dimly lighted room, without noticing 
the grateful light in the fire-place, and leaned 
against the framework of the window, putting his 
forehead against the icy glass. He seemed like a 
man overwhelmed by the news of some irreparable 
disaster; O’Farrell had never seen him like this 
before. 


84 


SEALED LIPS. 


“Come to bed,” repeated the young man, putting 
his hand on his shoulder. “Do not stay ” 

Suddenly Godefroid turned around, and seizing 
Patrice by his wrists with unexpected strength, 
darting flashing glances from his haggard eyes, he 
screamed, almost making the room echo with his 
voice : 

“You know! — that I love her— and I loved her 
before you ever saw her!” 

Patrice closed his eyes to keep from recoiling, 
and to remain master of himself before this insane 
man. For a few seconds he asked himself what 
was going to happen. Was this furious creature 
who was crushing his wrists going to be the prey of 
an attack of acute delirium? Should he use force 
to control him or should he attempt to calm him? 

Godefroid repeated, exasperated by his silence : 

' Do you hear me? answer me. I tell you that I 
love her !” 

There was such violent grief under this wild out- 
burst and this reiterated exclamation that Patrice, 
moved with pity, responded : 

“Poor friend! I can see that you do.” 

These words, said in that quiet tone that strong 
beings have at command in these extreme cases, 
seemed to have an influence on Godefroid’s nerves. 
His clutched fingers relaxed, he became as docile 
as a child, and allowed him to lead him toward the 
fire. There, without seeming to realize where he 


SEALED LIPS. 


85 


was, he seated himself, and looked about him with 
a wandering stare. 

Patrice understood that it was better to calm the 
mind before doing anything for the body, so asked, 
in a quiet tone : 

“Why did you not tell me this before?” 

At seeing the prodigious rapidity with which the 
reaction took place, a physician would have said 
that Antoine had been very ill. 

“Because,” replied he, in a tone so low that one 
could hardly hear him, “because I did not wish to 
admit it to myself. It is a miserable, shameful, 
useless stupidity.” 

Patrice interrupted him, to all appearances per- 
fectly cahn, but torn to the very heart by the 
thought of the future, which he could foresee : 

“My friend, be more just to yourself. Any 
woman, no matter how beautiful, or what high 
position she may occupy, will be flattered to know 
that she has your love.” 

“ Ah ! I merit it, the humiliation of being con- 
soled by you! And how I love her! She does not 
love me, and never will. What can I do? What 
more can I give her? I have caused her name to 
be in everybody's mouth; thanks to me, her beauty 
shines out like the sun above the multitude. How 
many years' work, how much devotion, and trouble 
I have passed through to accomplish this ! How 
many years of love ! For a long time I have shiv- 
ered and trembled an hour before I was to see her ! 


86 


SEALED LIPS. 


All this for nothing ! She never has once suspected 
that she has stopped the blood in my veins when 
she even touched me with her dress. You have 
only to make your appearance, and she adores 
you!” 

Patrice affected a burst of laughter, although he 
had no desire to do so. 

“Upon my word,” said he, “I never expected such 
a conclusion.” 

“She adores you,” repeated Godefroid. “When 
you first spoke to her this accursed evening her 
looks told me so, better than her mouth could. 
Chance favors you; you will possess this woman. 
I realized it as you went away with her. You car- 
ried her in your arms almost. What did you say? 
What passed between you? I shall never know. 
Oh, what a torture J” 

He arose, and became as agitated as at first. 

“Now, then, you are dreaming,” said O’Farrell. 
“ Do you think it was the time for sentiment? Our 
only thought was to get home as quickly as pos- 
sible, and I did not say twenty words.” 

“Twenty words! You do not know what I would 
give to be able to say three only to her. They 
weigh upon and choke me until it seems as if I 
should die.” 

“You will say them to her. You will make her 
love you; I premise it. As for that, you must live, 
and this will kill you if it continues.” 

“What matters it? It is too late now; she loves 


SCALED LIPS. 


87 


you. And you, you belong to her body and soul.” 

“Listen!” commanded Patrice. “You are crazy, 
and I shall treat you as such. If }mu refuse to obey 
me and will not go to bed, I warn you, I shall take 
you by force.” 

Godefroid fell back in his chair. O’Farrell 
glanced at him and saw that it was not to disobey 
him. He had fainted. 

At daybreak he was delirious, caused by a burn- 
ing fever. 

“Here he is for six weeks,” said the doctor, “or 
perhaps for a much shorter time, for the poor fellow 
is very dangerously ill. Listen to him! Jenny 
Sauval! Always the same! If I did not know that 
my patient was not a sentimental man, I should say 
that he was in love with this woman.” 

“Yes,” coldly replied Patrice, who doubted the 
discretion of these attending physicians at theaters; 
“one might be deceived, but it is of the singer that 
he thinks, not of the woman.” 

It was decided that Godefroid should have no 
other nurse than he, but another came that he 
was obliged to greet politely, willing or not; it 
was Madame Sauval. Fortunately she had other 
things to do than watch a sick man ; she had her 
daughter. The visits that she made the composer 
were not very long. When he was in a condition 
to understand anything, one could see that the vis- 
itor’s great desire was that her solicitude should 
not pass unnoticed. 


88 


SEALED LIPS. 


She even proposed on a certain day to bring her 
daughter with her, but Jenny had hardly entered 
the room before his fever redoubled, although 
Patrice had avoided speaking or looking at the 
young girl. 

“She came to see you!” murmured he, when his 
pupil had retired after a few moments’ visit. 

O’Farrell was a little more nervous than a nurse 
should be, but he said, in a quick tone : 

“ Then she shall not come again, you may be sure 
of it.” 

“I prefer that,” said the sick man. 

He turned his face to the wall as if ashamed of 
this weakness; and Patrice, in his inexperience, 
destined to be of short duration, was astonished to 
see that at certain times love is not as strong as 
jealousy. 

In Paris, when a fatal termination is feared, sick 
people pass through three distinct periods. At first 
they write about them, and the journals publish bul- 
letins of their health ; special reporters prepare the 
death notice, so as not to be obliged some fine night 
to lose a dinner when it should be needed. Then, 
as if by tacit consent, the patient’s name, which 
was displayed in all the windows the night before, 
is invisible and ignored as if he had died the year 
before. Finally three discreet lines appear an- 
nouncing in an almost disappointed tone that the 
invalid is restored to health, and that his place is 
not to be taken. 


SEALED LIPS. 


89 


For several weeks Godefroid had been in the sec- 
ond stage. Days would pass without a person step- 
ping over the threshold to inquire how the invalid 
was. Patrice continued to watch over and care for 
him. Madame Sauval multiplied her visits. Often, 
to let the convalescent rest, they would go into the 
little parlor and talk. 

“Madam,” said the young man one day, “are 
you not surprised or rather uneasy to see that ‘Con- 
stantin’ is no longer advertised? They have only 
given fifteen representations in all, if I am not 
mistaken.” 

“It is true,” said the Roumanian, “that the suc- 
cess of the piece has stopped short. The author’s 
illness was unfortunate for him.” 

“For him and for your daughter,” said Patrice, 
“ for I have not heard that they have given her any 
other role.” 

“Monsieur,” replied the lady, in a perfectly 
straightforward manner, “ I do not deceive myself. 
The role of Adossides is the first that my daughter 
has ever sung; it will be the last. You understand 
very well that I do not speak with such frankness 
to our friend; he has his expectations; I respect 
them, but I have a quick ear, and I hear people 
talk who know about it. My daughter has talent, 
intelligence, and the advantages that it does not 
become me to boast of. She made a success, and at 
the first attempt had the public in her favor. An- 
other would feel pleased, and would make her way. 


90 


SEALED LIPS. 


Jenny is proud, she has instincts that the theater 
constantly wound; what is called the sacred fire is 
wanting. The sooner she leaves the stage the bet- 
ter. I wish she had never been obliged to enter the 
profession. But fate is mysterious.” 

The mysteries of fate seemed to be all that 
Madame Sauval could ask for in this world, and 
Patrice was surprised to hear her admit with such 
beautiful calmness that her daughter’s musical 
career was gravely compromised. But a few days 
later she sang another song. 

“ Ah ! monsieur, a mother in my position is to be 
pitied! What would happen to my daughter if I 
should be taken away? What has the future in 
store for her? I told you once that she became a 
singer instead of a teacher. Alas! it is much easier 
for a teacher than a singer to make a good mar- 
riage.” 

“As to that you surprise me,” said the young 
man. 

And he named over a few persons. 

“One can see that you have not very thoroughly 
studied the question,” replied the Roumanian. 

She, on the contrary, seemed to know all about it. 
She recited over one by one names of persons, giv- 
ing biographies of their husbands, since their mar- 
riage, embellishing it with details which if pub- 
lished would not be very edifying. One hears so 
many things in the greenroom ! 

“Do you think there is anything in this to en- 


SEALED LIPS. 


91 


courage amateurs? One does not see a serious 
man, that is to say, one who has money and posi- 
tion, take a wife from off a theater’s stage ; I am 
convinced of it. Our friend meant it for the best in 
putting my daughter where she is. To be frank, 
they would both of them have done better to have 
remained as they were, one tranquil with me, the 
other on a less flattering field for his vanity per- 
haps, but more sure as to money.” 

Then the good creature commenced to talk, of 
Godefroid, that is, to ask questions as to his affairs, 
as was her habitual custom about everybody. 
O’Farrell, without suspecting it, was lead to tell 
what he knew about his friend’s money. When she 
asked him if according to his opinion the composer 
had long to live, he exclaimed : 

“ Long to live ! I hope he will reach a good old 
age.” 

“I, too,” said Madame Sauval, coldly, “but that 
is not the doctor’s opinion.” 

It was time for her to return to her home ; she 
folded up her work, and disappeared as silently as 
a cat. 

“ What is she concocting in her head?” said 
Patrice to himself. “ She has looked at everything 
through rose-colored glasses for two days now. To- 
day she is as somber as a fog on the Thames. She 
chills me.” 

The young man could not have seen many fogs 
in Cambodia, or they must have been very rare. 


92 


SEALED LIPS. 


Otherwise he would have seen that this one came 
from the Neva, not the Thames. The night be- 
fore, Madame Sauval had seen Prince Kemeneff. 
The nobleman loved Jenny enough to marry her, 
but he loved his position as chamberlain too much 
to lose it by an adventurous marriage. Another 
person would have grieved at seeing her plans all 
destroyed, but Madame Sauval had seen, during 
her life, too many such catastrophes. She had 
already in her fertile mind erected other new com- 
binations. To marry a prima-donna or the widow 
of a celebrated musician was an entirely different 
thing, even in the Czar’s eyes. And that was why 
Martscha was so uneasy about the musician’s 
chance of life, as well as the state of his financial 
affairs. She wanted Godefroid to live long enough 
to give his name to Jenny, but not long enough for 
Kemeneff to lose courage and transfer his affections 
somewhere else. 

From this day Madame. Sauval took care of Gode- 
froid, or rather she watched him with a zeal and 
devotion enough to make one’s hair stand on end. 
He improved slowly, but at last he recovered. He 
commenced to talk, and according to all appear- 
ances he entered into the views of his nurse, who 
wished to indulge in a private interview with him ; 
suddenly she remarked one day that Patrice looked 
ill. 

“ Monsieur,” said she, “you do not walk enough. 


SEALED LIPS. 


At your age one needs plenty of fresh air, and you 
have been deprived of it for several weeks.” 

“That is true,” said the patient, “it has been as 
much as a month since you have been out.” 

“How do you know?” said Patrice, laughing. 
“Could I not go out when you were asleep?” 

Godefroid looked at the young man with a sud- 
den, uneasy expression. 

Then, after a moment’s reflection, he said : 

“Ho! Even in my sleep, which was always very 
light, I felt that you were near me.” 

“I never knew such devoted friendship,” declared 
Madame Sauval. 

“I would like to know,” thought Patrice, “what 
reason she has for sounding my praises ; in what 
way can it affect her plans that Godefroid cannot 
live long, and why does she wish to see him alone. 
Perhaps a will is to be made. Thank goodness, we 
have not come to that pass.” 

Willing or not he must go out to escape their 
united entreaties. As he appeared all equipped to 
brave the cold and to say “good-by” to the invalid, 
Godefroid asked with a singular interest : 

“Where are you going?” 

“ I do not care where, so long as I can find the 
sun.” 

“If I were in your place,” suggested the widow, 
“I should go to the Bois ” 

“To skate?” interrupted the young man. “Ho! I 
dislike the cold too much.” 


94 


SEALED LIPS. 


“ Y ou need not skate. Somebody was telling us 
yesterday of the greenhouses at the Jardin d’ Ac- 
climation, that they were now one of Paris' sights.” 

“ A good idea,” said Godefroid. “ Go and visit the 
greenhouses— you will find some of your dear tropi- 
cal plants there.” 

“So be it,” said Partice, with a resigned air. “It 
will be a long walk.” 

“Not too long for you,” insisted the sick man. 
“The air there will do you more good than the city 
air.” 

“ How afraid he is that I shall go to see Jenny !” 
thought the young man as he closed the door be- 
hind him. “ What if I should go?” 

But he reflected that if he should go, upon his 
return falsehood after falsehood would accumulate, 
and that sooner or later Godefroid would be in- 
formed of his deceit. 

“Truly,” said he to himself, as he took the road 
to the Saint Lazare station, “liberty is only a name. 
I am twenty-eight years old, and supposed to enjoy 
all my rights, and here I am, forced to go to see a 
greenhouse instead of talking an hour with the only 
person whose conversation would do me good.” 


SEALED LIPS. 


95 


CHAPTER XI. 

A HAPPY MEETING. 

A quarter of an hour later Patrice left the Porte- 
Maillot station, hurrying along the avenue, which 
was hardened by the cold, and cracked with every 
step that he took. He was almost entirely alone. 
At this early hour there were a few carriages filled 
with nurses and children to be seen. The place and 
the air that he came to seek were before him. He 
walked rapidly, turning occasionally toward a 
group of youngsters, spinning their tops while the 
coachman, superb in his furs, was chatting with a 
nurse shivering under her waterproof. 

Astonished at first, then charmed by this soli- 
tude, O’Farrell commenced to reflect, and at once 
asked himself where and when he had been able to 
think the last time. 

It was upon the bridge of a steamboat, some three 
months before, where he took his accustomed walk. 
How tranquil in his mind he was then ! At Cam- 
bodia he pined for nothing. The thought of return- 
ing to France gave him quiet joy, rather than 
feverish expectancy. He left poor and returned 
poor, but not discouraged. With the exception of 
a friend for whom he had a more than ordinary 
affection, not one being in all Paris would notice 
his return. 


96 


SEALED LIPS. 


“ Mon Dieu /” sighed he, “ am I never to have a 
happy hour again?” 

What a troubled life he had had from the time 
he landed at Marseilles ! First he bought a paper 
which announced the production of Godefroid’s 
opera the next day. Then what a mass of unex- 
pected events. The hurried trip and the arrival ; 
the pleasure of seeing his friend applauded ; the 
emotion of the meeting and his surprise; the sor- 
row at discovering that his friend’s heart and 
spirits were in no better condition than his body; 
the disappointment of finding him almost aged 
when he had left him so young. And then — Jenny 
Sauval! 

A strange vision full of a charm, the existence of 
which he had never suspected! This woman, he 
knew perfectly well, marked a new period in his 
life, the same as in history, a name suddenly 
famous, will mark an ineffaceable line between two 
epochs. 

Jenny Sauval! This name seemed to close the 
past and open the future for him. 

“The future!” sighed he, overcome by the melan- 
choly reality. 

Another loved this woman, and that other was 
his benefactor and friend, who was just returning 
from death’s door. Poor Godefroid ! What torture 
he had endured, and how long he had concealed it ! 
Health, success, and love were vanishing at the 
same time, under the troubles of this discouraged 


SEALED LIPS. 


97 


wrestler. Friendship itself, which had held such 
a place in this life, consecrated to self-sacrifice, 
friendship violated, agitated, and threatened by 
this disastrous rivalry. 

“It is always she, always the same thought!” 
groaned Patrice, as he continued his walk. “ This 
woman is the torment, the obstacle, the sorrow — 
and also the heaven, a heaven only half seen and 
already more than half closed.” 

“Well, monsieur,” said a voice — too well known 
— which came from a side-path. “What is the 
matter with you? What has anybody done to you? 
You look angry, and at the same time sad.” 

O’Farrell turned around without a start. The 
surprise was so great that it took away all power of 
reaction. He thought that he was dreaming, and 
nothing surprised him in a dream. He bowed to 
Jenny, and replied, without coming out of his 
stupor : 

“Nothing has happened to me. I am out for a 
walk, that is all.” 

“You walk and repeat Hamlet’s role. Am I des- 
tined by chance to give you the cue?” 

And in a very sweet but joking tone she com- 
menced to recite : 

“ Here he is ! Am I the one that attracts you 
toward this place?” 

But she stopped as she noticed Patrice’s heart- 
broken looks. 

“Well! you do not feel like joking. As for me, 


98 


SEALED LIPS , . 


this beautiful winter sun makes me gay. Seriously, 
how do you do? Not very well, I can see by your 
face. Certainly you must be tired at the very least. 
I know what a devoted friend you are, Monsieur 
O’ Farrell, and I congratulate myself. You prom- 
ised to be mine also.” 

By this time Patrice had gained possession of 
himself. He looked at Jenny, sparkling with fresh- 
ness and beauty, and happily surprised at their 
meeting. Around them there was nothing but joy, 
life, and promise. The sun was shining with that 
brilliancy and cold glitter, like new gold, that the 
winter, hardly yet finished, had left for a few days 
yet. Some of the trees were already green like 
young fashionables in advance of the season. In 
the places protected from the north wind, the 
ground exhaled that subtle odor which is not a per- 
fume, but an emanation of itself, exquisite and de- 
licious, particularly to those young creatures bub- 
bling over with life. 

Any man, no matter how hardened, could not 
remain impassible before this reunion of all the 
principal attractions in life. As to the enthusiastic 
O’Farrell, who for the first time in weeks had left 
the dark room and morose society of an invalid, he 
felt as if under the influence of a pleasant intoxica- 
tion, ready to forget all disagreeable things pro- 
vided that one aided him a little. 

In certain meetings, under the influence of cer- 
tain emotions for a long time suppressed, it becomes 


SEALED LIPS. 


99 


impossible to say a word to the one who has caused 
this trouble, otherwise than by the most passionate 
of vows or the silliest and most trivial of speeches. 
Between the children with their tops and the coach- 
man fastened to his seat, watching his mistress 
from a distance, Patrice could not give himself the 
pleasure of opening his heart to her. He said for 
want of better : 

“Then you are taking a walk, too?” 

At this schoolboy’s speech, this tragedy princess 
burst out into a laugh, showing those pretty white 
teeth which she was not accustomed to expose so 
generously. 

“It would be useless in me to deny it,” replied 
she, “even if I would. My mother having informed 
me that we should not go out together to-day, as 
she should be absent the greater part of the after- 
noon, and the carriage not having been counter- 
manded, appearing at the usual hour before my 
door, I could not resist this beautiful day, and I 
came here hoping not to meet any one ” 

“Oh, you have met nobody,” interrupted Patrice. 
“I am of no account. What is funnier yet is that I 
came to this place by Madame Sauval’s advice.” 

“ What story is this you are telling?” 

“I assure you that your mother insisted that I 
should pay the greenhouses a visit.” 

“It is not so extraordinary as you think. Yes- 
terday Prince Kemeneff spoke so enthusiastically 
of this winter-garden that I came to visit it on his 


100 


SEALED LIPS. 


recommendation. The prince said that one would 
not meet a living soul here.” 

O’Farrell looked a little uneasy. 

“Perhaps he will be here, who knows?” 

Jenny stopped suddenly, understanding his insin- 
uation ; she scowled and looked about for her car- 
riage. Suddenly changing her mind : 

“Monsieur!” said she, with an entirely different 
air. “Come back with me. It shall be your pun- 
ishment for the words just spoken. Learn, once 
for all, that I do not take such jokes in good part.” 

“Mademoiselle,” said Patrice, “I accept the pun- 
ishment. I sinned only from carelessness. I did 
not know what I said. I did not expect to meet 
you. My joy is so great and — I am so unused to 
good luck, I spoke without reflection. I assure you 
that by living near a man whose brain is affected 
by suffering, one almost catches the disease.” 

“Meanwhile, he is better, is he not?” said she, 
appeased. 

“Certainly, much better. It is necessary to use 
every precaution ” 

He sighed as he thought that she was the first of 
all these precautions. If Godefroid could see them 
passing through the garden gate together what a 
bitter surprise it would be, perhaps a terrible re- 
lapse. 

“What a beautiful day it is !” exclaimed the 
young lady. “ What a lucky thought we both had. 


SEALED LIPS. 


101 


How still, and what a delicious warmth there is in 
this miniature forest.” 

It was beautiful in reality, but of a fictitious 
nature and singularly enervating. There was 
nothing natural or familiar to the Parisians ; either 
the wall concealed under the crawling verdure of 
the lycopodium, or the light through the glass roof, 
or the trees with such excessively large trunks, 
compared to their height, that they looked like 
large hogsheads from which grew slender branches 
of light foliage. Patrice recognized the scenes that 
he had looked at every morning for so long a time, 
only on a grander scale. He saw once more the 
gigantic tropical ferns, the clusters of bamboo with 
their long yellow sticks crowned by a long slender 
foliage, like ostrich feathers, the entangled net- 
work of tropical creepers, orchids with long droop- 
ing foliage at once charming and hideous, looking 
like large insects sleeping under their folded wings. 
Above all, he recognized those intoxicating emana- 
tions to which he was so accustomed and which he 
could endure without suffering. 

“ Yes, it is beautiful,” said he, seating himself a 
few steps from his companion. “It is as beautiful 
as that which is not real can be. An adorable false- 
hood, limited to a duration of some moments and a 
space of a few feet. We are benumbed now by 
these beautiful illusions. Soon we shall pass out of 
this door and find the cold reality again, the frosty 
air, the bare ground, leafless trees. The truth will 


102 


SEALED LIPS. 


reappear once more to us, or rather to one of us, for 
the other is a creature so divinely gifted that she 
seems elevated above reality itself.” 

Jenny listened with lowered eyes, as if her ears 
were still more charmed than her eyes. When he 
had finished speaking she said, in her deep, musical 
voice : 

“ It is strange that you should speak of dreams 
and illusions. You have just come from a country 
where the reality of these things surrounding us 
exists.” 

“It is true,” said he, half closing his eyes to see 
again the far off scenes. “ I have traveled days 
and nights in forests of which this glass cage is 
only an ingenious miniature. I have experienced 
as great emotions as nature is able to excite in any 
human being. It was sublime. It was immense, 
but for all that — empty. In the midst of this fer- 
vent working of material, in this teeming life which 
flies and leaps about me in its own way, I was 
chilled by an overwhelming solitude. How many 
days of my life would I not have given then to see 
spring up at my side the one supreme miracle with- 
out which all else is simply a frame waiting for a 
picture ! Ah ! how I called you then, so often, with- 
out knowing you. Perhaps I shall die under excess 
of enthusiasm at meeting in this paradise the Eve 
of my heart, if she would only permit me the joy of 
touching her hand with my lips.” 

Patrice forgot for a moment that another man 


SEALED LIPS. 


103 


had put his foot into his Eden. He forsrot the sick 
man who was watching with a sad and anxious 
look the hands on the enameled clock that moved 
so slowly. He took Jenny’s gloved hand, and 
kissed it softly, nor did she try to defend herself. 

She gazed steadily before her at her feet, and her 
pearly nostrils and rosy lips showed by their slight 
tremor that she had felt the kiss. Nobody came to 
trouble them, no human sound reached them. The 
exotic birds, screaming in their neighboring cages, 
added to the illusion of an unknown fairy country 
to which some spirit had suddenly transported 
them. 

Patrice, vanquished by this increasing rapture, 
forgot everything, all save respect, and dropped on 
his knees with clasped hands and moist eyes, in 
which adoration was shining. At this moment 
Jenny came to herself, and drawing her cloak over 
her shoulders, she quietly arose and said, in a weak 
voice, but so soft and caressing that a stranger 
ignorant of our language would have said it to have 
an entirely opposite meaning : 

“ We must go now, it is late.” 

“Alas!” groaned O’Farrell, sighing as if he had 
awakened from a delicious dream. 

He still remained on his knee, following her with 
his eyes as she walked away, seeming to glide over 
the ground like a floating vision. When she reached 
the threshold of the greenhouse she turned about 
and said, with a brusque effort : 


104 


HEALED LIPS . 


“Come! let us go.” 

He rejoined her, and offered his arm. 

“Thanks,” said she. “My hands are cold; I will 
keep them in my muff.” 

At that moment a wedding-party passed them. 
The red-faced and slightly gray-haired husband 
was gazing with his big round eyes at his bride, 
who was dressed in bridal costume, and carried 
orange blossoms, disdaining to appear modest, and 
joking and laughing like a crazy crbature. Patrice 
and his companion turned their heads and walked 
away without speaking, secretly indignant against 
this vulgar tenderness which disturbed their poetic 
dreams and was also called love, miserable profa- 
nation! In a few seconds they reached Jenny’s 
carriage. 

“Rue de Yienne,” said she to the coachman, while 
O’Farrell stood hat in hand before the opened door. 

The sweet smile of a happy woman was the only 
“good-by” that she vouchsafed him. 


HEALED LIPS. 


105 


CHAPTER XII. 

STARTLING APPRAISEMENTS. 

O’Farrell left the woods, as he had entered them 
an hour before, on foot. In passing the station he 
was so absorbed in thought that he forgot to enter 
to take the train, so that his legs took him to Gode- 
froid’s the same as a well-trained horse takes a 
sleeping coachman home safely. 

He paid so little attention to his walk and the in- 
cidents on the way that when he opened the in- 
valid’s door it seemed to him that he had but just 
closed the greenhouse gate. The contrast was 
great. He left verdure, flowers, light and moist air 
rendered healthy by the exhalations of the plants. 
He found himself suddenly in the close atmosphere 
of heavy draperies, in the dim light of lowered cur- 
tains, and the nauseating odors of medicine. Above 
all, he had left Jenny for Godefroid, pleasure for 
duty, the fantastic for the real. 

“What !” exclaimed Madame Sauval. “Home 
already?” 

“Hum!” thought the young man ; “it seems that 
I have not given you time to say your beads. How 
do you feel?” added he, aloud, as he took his friend’s 
hand. 


106 


SEALED LIES. 


“Very well,” replied Godefroid, with a cross look. 
Then designating the widow by a glance as she 
was putting some wood on the fire : 

“I am very bad,” corrected he, in a low tone. 
“She has killed me.” 

When the two friends were alone Patrice asked: 

“What did she say to you?” 

Godefroid had not taken his eyes from him since 
he entered. Without replying to the question that 
was asked him he inquired : 

“Did you go to the Bois? You have not had time, 
it seems to me.” 

“But I did, my friend,” said Patrice, nervously. 
“ Would you like to see my ticket?” 

He took the little piece of pasteboard from his 
pocket, taking care not to take out the one that he 
had taken for Jenny. After this proof Godefroid 
seemed calmer. He closed his eyes, and only for 
the slight tremor of the eyelids one would have said 
that he was sleeping. 

“Poor friend!” thought Patrice, moved with deep 
pity. “ How I have deceived him, but I was obliged 
to do it ! If he knew that he himself was the cause 
of our meeting ! If he knew ” 

“Patrice!” exclaimed the invalid, bounding up in 
bed, “my days are ended!” 

“You are nearly well,” said the other, soothingly, 
“but you have kept your bed too long, and that, 
with the low diet, has filled your head with dark 
thoughts. Eat, drink, and commence to live again 


SEALED lips. 


107 


as a person should who has everything in life to 
live for.” 

“Why did you deceive me?” continued the in- 
valid. “Why did you tell me that “Constantin” 
was still on the boards when it was not so? For 
three weeks my name has not been advertised.” 

“ It will not appear for some time to come if you 
allow it to disturb you like this.” 

“Why did you not tell me that Mademoiselle 
Sauval was not singing*her role of Adossides, and 
that she had been offered no part in the new opera 
now running or in the ones in preparation?” 

“The devil!” exclaimed the young man, beside 
himself with rage. “ That is what that satanic Cas- 
sandra was so anxious that I should take the air 
for. She lost no time while she had you alone. I 
find you in a fine state, physically and morally.” 

As is usual in such cases, the exasperation of one 
calmed the other. 

“Now, then,” said Godefroid, “you did not expect 
to conceal it from me the rest of my days, that my 
opera has been a half failure. You might have 
done so without much trouble perhaps, as my days 
are nearly ended, and God knows I have no wish to 
complain.” 

“Yes,” growled Patrice, “you are dying, you are 
dead, you are buried. That is understood. She 
told you that at the same time with the rest, I sup- 
pose? I hope that she also spoke of your will?” 

“Oh! my friend, how you wrong her. She is the 


108 


SEALED LIPS. 


most disinterested of women. But let us drop that. 
I shall get well since you decide it so. When I am 
able to be about I shall try to get a position as 
organist, and I will compose masses.” 

“Very well,” said O’Farrell, fixing his clear eyes 
on his friend, for a suspicion darted through his 
mind. “ What will Mademoiselle Sauval do?” 

A slight flush mounted into the invalid’s cheeks, 
and for a moment he was silent, and seemed em- 
barrassed. Suddenly he burst out into a forced 
laugh, and replied, in a pleasant tone : 

“She will do as a great many singers do. Sing in 
concerts and at soirees, where the people cannot 
afford to pay for stars.” 

After this forced sally the conversation ended 
abruptly, and from that time until evening he 
hardly spoke. The next day the doctor said to 
Patrice, after his visit to the sick man : 

“I do not know what to make of his case. When 
I have relieved his lungs then the heart is wrong, 
when these two are fairly well, I think perhaps the 
brain is affected. In spite of all this he is better, 
and what is necessary now is that he should go 
South. You who are always near him maneuver 
accordingly.” 

At the first overture Godefroid had a sort of 
spasm of fright, and fairly shrieked. Madame 
Sauval was admitted to the consultation, and said 
that the doctors were all the same, and soon tired 


SEALED LIPS. 


109 


of their patients, thinking only of getting them off 
from their hands by sending them away. 

“As for myself,” concluded she, “if I were in our 
dear convalescent’s place, I should defy the whole 
faculty of France to make^me even cross the Seine.” 

There was no longer any talk of leaving, and 
from day to day the Roumanian assumed a most 
manifest empire over Godefroid. They had secret 
talks, from which it was not necessary to send 
Patrice away by a subterfuge, for he saw plainly 
that he was not wanted, and would take of his own 
free will his hat, and leave the field clear for them. 

One symptom struck him. Cassandra and her 
doleful manifestations had disappeared, and made 
place for a sweet, consoling friend, with a fund of 
good humor, always ready to look on the bright 
side of life. Added to that she was more devoted 
to Godefroid than ever. One would have thought 
her a sister of Saint Vincent de Paul without her 
cap, and humming, “We have only one life to live,” 
from one end of the day to another. What com- 
pleted Godefroid’s subjugation was that, thanks to 
his nurse, he was making great progress toward 
health. 

“He is better,” declared the doctor, “and better 
than all I think his disease is really better. The 
pulse is agitated, but then he has a pulse. This 
man hangs to life. As for us, nothing is more dif- 
ficult than to keep a man from dying who laughs at 
a cemetery as he would a pill.” 


110 


SEALED LIES. 


At first Patrice felt somewhat bitter to think that 
he was not the first in his friend’s confidence. 
Nevertheless he was delighted at the salutary 
change, and even on his own account, for his ex- 
istence was less laborious. His thankless task of 
consoler, according to all appearances, was ended. 
There was no necessity of talking for hours to 
Godefroid to convince him that his illness was only 
a temporary fatigue and that he would live to be a 
hundred years old, that the public were only await- 
ing his re-establishment to health to vehemently 
demand the reproduction of “Constantin.” 

The important question between these two men 
at this time was the future, a peaceable life in the 
country perhaps, then there were appraisements to 
be made, columns to add up, and investments to be 
looked after. Anybody, to hear them talk, would 
think he was in a merchant’s office, computing his 
profits and trying to find out if the time had come 
to sell his stock and live on his income. 

It was not an easy work, for the composer had 
never had a stock broker or a regular notary. The 
disorder common to all artists was to be found in 
him, but not of the ordinary kind, for Godefroid 
placed his capital, and then lost sight of it, even 
neglecting to collect his dividends. 

In the end, after looking over memoranda, exam- 
ining certificates of deposit in twenty different 
banks and adding the balance to his credit, Patrice 
ended by obtaining a sum which astonished him. 


SEALED LIPS. 


Ill 


“Five hundred thousand francs!” exclaimed he, 
la} ing his pencil on the table. “Is it possible that 
you have earned five hundred thousand francs by 
writing quavers!” 

“Why!” replied Godefroid, modestly, “my one 
operetta was played three hundred times in Paris. 
Add to this the performances in the country and 
abroad. Then remember that I have no house, 
horses, wife, or children. I had one child, but for 
five years he has not cost me much. Certainly five 
hundred thousand francs is a good sum, even for a 
man who is accused of hoarding up his money. I 
should have thought ” 

“Good!” said Patrice, “now you are going to 
complain. What do you lack? Would you be any 
happier if you had a million?” 

Godefroid did not reply, but lost in thought, 
shook his head softly, as if to say : 

“ I do not think one million would be too much 
for what I have in mind.” 

Madame Sauval’s visits were just as regular, con- 
fidential, and long as ever. If she happened to meet 
Patrice she would give him a few gracious words, a 
smile, and a shake of the hand. O’Farrell felt a 
great antipathy for this woman, not doubting but 
that on her side she detested him, too, but he 
treated her with ceremonious politeness. He felt 
that grave events were going to happen in which 
his role, to all appearances, was likely to be a 
thankless cne. A thousand daily occurrences con- 


112 


SEALED LIPS. 


vinced him that he was far fropa being a necessary 
person to Godefroid, and sometimes it seemed to 
him that his presence troubled him. Unfortunately 
for the peace of his future life, the day was near 
when they would need him too much. 


HEALED LIPS. 


113 


CHAPTER XIII. 
godefroid’s stern resolve. 

One evening, after dinner, Godefroid was seated 
in his chair before his desk. Usually at this hour 
he would be stretched out before the tire on a sofa. 
He was agitated, and his hands trembled ; he had 
hardly eaten anything. Patrice feared that he had 
a fever, and asked him : 

“Do you not feel well this evening?” 

“Do I look like an invalid, then?” said he, with a 
disappointed air. 

He arose and approached the mirror, looking at 
himself as anxiously as a coquette does at her first 
wrinkle, then he returned to his seat. 

“No,” said he. “I feel very well. Only I am pre- 
occupied. My dear Patrice,” said he suddenly, “I 
have something important to tell you.” 

“Something pleasant, I hope,” added Patrice, to 
encourage his friend, who seemed moved at the 
communication he was about to make. 

“ If you remember, }mu advised me once to get 
married,” said Godefroid. “Perhaps you remember 
also who it was that you advised me to marry?” 

“ I have not forgotten, it was Mademoiselle Sau- 
val,” replied Patrice, as he arose and lowered the 
lamp shade to keep the light from his eyes. 


114 


SEALED LIPS. 


“You also remember my objections. I said that 
a composer is foolish to marry an artist who sings 
his roles.” 

“I conclude that you have changed your opinion.” 

“ It is not my opinion that has changed, but cir- 
cumstances are not the same. The musician Gode- 
froid is dead and buried.” 

“Good!” said the young man, with forced gayety, 
“this is a burial notice which very much resembles 
a marriage invitation. As to the marriage, I am 
with you. But as to the burial, I take exceptions.” 

“No, my dear friend, make no exceptions. ‘Con- 
stantin’ will be my last work, not so much because 
it is not appreciated as for a more peremptory rea- 
son ; I have not strength necessary for it. Even if 
I had my confidence would fail me.” 

“My dear Godefroid, I do not merit this half 
frankness. You are forty-five years old. A few 
days ago we added up your fortune. Your first 
great work succeeded, certainly financially. Some 
say that you have deceived yourself. Nobody has 
pretended that you are not a great artist. And 
now, at this very moment, you pose as a van- 
quished man, forced from the battle-field. Now 
then ! Why not open your heart to me ? Why not 
tell me, * I love J enny Sauval more than music. I 
prefer rather than the glory of writing chef d' oeuvres 
the joy of making the one who holds my happiness 
in her hands my wife.’ Do you not suppose that I 
would do as much if in your place?” 


SEALED LIPS. 


115 


Godefroid did not take his eyes off from his 
friend’s face while he was speaking with so much 
enthusiasm that one would say that he was plead- 
ing his own cause. Noticing suddenly his defiant 
look the young man said for diversion : 

“You look depressed. Holdup your head. One 
would think to look at you that you had committed 
a crime.” 

“A crime? No,” replied Godefroid, slowly. “A 
foolishness probably; a bad action perhaps.” 

O’Farrell said nothing, for this time, in spite of 
his desire to soothe the patient’s mind, as he had 
his body, he could think of no reply. For some 
moments nothing could be heard but the crackling 
of the burning wood. 

“Ah! your silence is eloquent !” exclaimed Gode- 
froid. “Everything looks gloomy before me, all, 
even our friendship. Whatever happens we shall 
never be the same to each other that we have been. 
My God! why did you leave me? How happy, 
calm, and sweet our life was! You filled the place 
of all, and when I saw this boy by my side that I 
was so proud of, there was no other place in my 
heart for other love. But you went away. In the 
empty space left by you another image has taken 
root, the seed being sown by chance. Then little by 
little the plant grew, and now ” 

He stopped with such a heart-broken gesture that 
O’Farrell, moved by his suffering, tried to encour- 
age him in his illusion. 


116 


SEALED LIPS. 


“ You can see how it is if you have a young father. 
Sooner or later one may depend upon having a step- 
mother. If you think that our friendship will suffer 
from it ” 

“Our friendship!” said Godefroid, returning to 
his one fear that never left him night or day. 
“Perhaps you hate me at this moment. Why 
should you not hate me if you love her?” 

“By Jove! must I repeat it?” commenced Patrice. 

Godefroid had arisen, and was walking up and 
down the room as he used to do before his illness. 
Without giving his companion time to reply he 
continued : 

“You have only loved her a few weeks. I have 
loved her for four years, ever since a certain even- 
ing, when a stranger that I hardly knew, invited 
me to her house without warning me of her object. 
All of a sudden I saw a young girl approach the 
piano. She sang passably well, I think ; I hardly 
listened. When she had finished, and they told her 
that she had sung before the composer, Godefroid, 
this charming creature before whom I have so 
often trembled became white as a sheet, and 
trembled all over. I was obliged— oh ! the irony of 
fate !— to talk to her, and reassure her, to encour- 
age her by telling her that I had taken great pleas- 
ure in hearing her. I was the one who stammered, 
who could think of no words, and was more embar- 
rassed than when as a child they took me to your 
mother, I, the little country lad, who had never 


SEALED LIPS. 


117 


spoken to any but the village people before. When 
I left the parlor I had promised all sorts of things, 
so it seemed to me. Be that as it may, I have kept 
all of my promises. I devoted myself to Jenny as 
I devoted myself to you.” 

“Yes,” said O’Farrell, “but this time your devo- 
tion will be recompensed.” 

“Alas! In order to do that she must love me! 
Love me!” repeated he as he stopped before the 
glass. “ How can I be foolish enough to have such 
an idea, I, whose days are numbered? Say what 
you will with your gestures, my poor friend. I feel 
within myself an invisible wound from which drops 
slowly away that unknown thing called life. A 
wise man would say good-by to the world, the 
future, and renounce everything. I do not want to 
die like this. I have tasted more or less of some of 
the joys 6f this life here below— work, the joy of 
being useful to others, the glory of fame. But I 
seem to forget it all, and if my hour should come 
now I should feel as if I had not lived.” 

He was so animated as he talked, his features so 
rejuvenated, that he was truly beautiful in his en- 
thusiasm, mixed with the energy of somber despair. 
O’Farrell could not help from exclaiming: 

“ Ah ! if she could see you like this ! she could not 
help being touched.” 

“Touched!” repeated Godefroid, with an ironical 
laugh. “ Well, no matter. If I could only kneel at 
her feet and tell her how I adore her, let my heart 


118 


SEALED LIPS. 


gush out, that is bursting within me with this ac- 
cumulation of passionate love. Ah!” said he, put- 
ting his hands over his excited face, “for this hap- 
piness only, for one year of this intoxication it 
seems to me that I would gladly give my share of 
heaven, if there is one. At least I would give all 
that I possess ; my music, which has been my only 
god, what little glory surrounds my name, I would 
give you, Patrice. If at this time I love another 
more than I do you, do not be jealous. Your por- 
tion will have been the larger. I consecrated fifteen 
years of my life to you. In fifteen years from now 
nobody but yourself perhaps will remember that I 
ever existed.” 

Godefroid stopped for breath, so tired by his ex- 
citement that his friend tried to calm him as one 
calms a child by talking of a desired plaything.” 

“You left off,” said he, “at the most interesting 
part. Have you offered yourself?” 

The composer glanced at the clock, and replied : 

“ By this time she must know all ; her mother was 
to speak to her for me ; she is an excellent friend. 
Provided that she acts adroitly, and has well pre- 
pared her daughter ” 

“Oh! your future mother-in-law is not wanting 
in adroitness,” interrupted O’Farrell. “If she ac- 
cepts you as her son-in-law it is because she has 
discovered that it is for her interest to do so. If 

Madame Sauval is interested in anything Good 

heavens ! if I was sure that she wished me to be 


SEALED LIES. 


119 


hung before your marriage I should almost think 
that I felt the rope about my neck.” 

Godefroid made no reply to this speech. It was 
easy to see that it was not to his taste, but he 
seemed to have lost the power of contradiction. 

“ Will it be settled soon?” asked Patrice, to make 
conversation with his friend. 

“Yes, at two o'clock to-morrow I shall know the 
reply.” 

He closed his eyes for a moment, shivering ner- 
vously, and then arose from his seat to go to his 
chamber. As he said good-night to the young man 
he held his hand for a moment, saying, in a trem- 
bling voice: 

“Since you believe in God pray that she may not 
say no. I shall kill myself if she does.” 

“Rest easy; you will not need to kill yourself,” 
replied Patrice, as he returned his grasp. 

This confidence in her reply one must see was not 
the most sincere, for the next day Patrice maneu- 
vered in every way to meet Jenny's mother on the 
stairs as she came up. The look of rage and resent- 
ment that she darted upon him was enough for him 
to know that she had failed in her diplomacy. 

“Is ‘ no' the response that you carry him?” asked 
he, without losing time for any forms of politeness. 

“You rejoice too soon,” taunted the Roumanian. 
“Your friend shall know all. We will see what 
he thinks of the edifying role that you have played 
with my daughter.” 


120 


SEALED LIPS. 


“Madam,” said O’Farrell, “I swear that you shall 
not enter Godefroid’s room without having made 
me a promise first. You must tell him that she 
accepts.” 

She opened her eyes wide, and stood motionless 
with surprise. She was too cunning in the art of 
deceiving others not to read the truth that was 
written in his face. 

“But then,” stammered she, “I do not under- 
stand ” 

“ I really think that a woman like you would be 
troubled to understand a man like myself. B 1 1 
cannot explain here. Go, madam, time presses; 
reassure Godefroid, who is dying of uneasiness. 
Give him to understand that he will marry your 
daughter, for he will marry her, I swear it, upon 
upon my honor as an O’Farrell!” 

“But Jenny refuses — and I imagine you know 
why.” 

Patrice made a gesture of impatience, as if he 
was a thousand miles from knowing why. He in- 
sisted more feverishly yet : 

“ I heg of you, madam, do as I ask you. Gain time. 
Invent some excuse ; your daughter was taken by 
surprise ; she was not expecting such a thing ! She 
asks for twenty-four hours. Imagine something 
yourself. But do not leave Godefroid with any fear 
in his mind, I beg of you. Madam, go quickly. 
Every moment that passes is danger to him.” 

Without giving Madame Sauval time to reply he 


SEALED LIPS. 


121 


walked rapidly away, his heart full of joy, and at 
the same time with the bitterest agony. She had 
said “no.” 

“My God!” thought he, “how we are going to 
suffer! But I should have suffered more had she 
said ‘yes.’ ” 

He walked fast, that he might forget his troubles, 
and have time to think of what he was about to do. 
Never a lover flew with greater haste to his mis- 
tress’ feet. In a few moments he reached Rue de 
Vienne, and without paying any attention to the 
servant, who refused him admittance, he walked 
into the parlor. Jenny was sitting in an arm-chair 
with depressed and fatigued looks, gazing with her 
burning eyes at the flame that was dancing on the 
hearth. 


122 


SEALED LIPS. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

A NOBLE SACRIFICE. 

Always accustomed to submit to her mother’s 
-ron will, Jenny had early assumed the habit of 
resignation, recompensing herself in her secret soul 
by an invisible but proud revolt against persons 
and events. This melancholy which her counte- 
nance so often expressed, and which was mistaken 
by people for proud disdain, came from this cause, 
as well as her half smile, which seemed but an at- 
tempt. How could she smile? Her youth had 
given her none of those joys that she bad hoped for 
as due in her life. In her artistic career, embraced 
from necessity, not taste, Mademoiselle Sauval had 
found numberless trials to her delicate nature. All 
the attractive side of theater life that she had heard 
so much about were without savor for her, the same 
as an imprisoned bird, to whom the choicest grain 
cannot replace the fresh, free air. 

To really understand the state of her mind, one 
single word suffices — she waited. For the young, 
still ignorant of the long trials of life, resignation 
is only a kind of waiting. But from the date that 
Patrice O’Farrell first appeared before her eyes, 
waiting took a form, a name, and very soon a voice 
for her. At last those words that she had dreamed 


SEALED LIPS. 


123 


of hiring addressed to her, not under a stifling 
mask at the theater, but by a man, had been said. 
This profound tenderness, this charming respect, 
like a song breathed at the foot of a balcony, this 
murmured admiration so little like the greenroom 
madrigals, all seemed to Jenny like the delicious 
preface to a book that she hoped to read soon, but 
with what deep emotion ! 

The offer that her mother had transmitted on 
Godefroid’s part had glided over her heart like a 
question in a strange language which had struck 
her ear without appealing to her understanding. 
Madame Sauval was not one of those who was 
easily beaten. She would insist and question, and 
when she wished to know a thing the best kept 
secrets would not hold out before her curiosity. 
She soon learned two things — one, that nobody ever 
thought of concealing from her that her daughter’s 
heart was captured, the other she suspected also 
very quickly, that Jenny loved O’Farrell. 

She knew her daughter too well to overwhelm her 
with vain or even formidable reproaches, she had 
no hesitation as to the step to he taken, and when 
Patrice stopped her on the stairs she had gone to 
Godefroid’s with the determination to say to him, 
without any circumlocution : 

“Your friend is your rival. Send him away!” 

Jenny was hardly surprised to see Patrice, al- 
though a visit from this young man, without being 
announced, was enough to have surprised her. For 


124 


SEALED LIPS. 


some time she had been left to herself by reason of 
her forced idleness, and she often thought of this 
new-comer in her life, who had, one might say, 
entered into its innermost recesses. Thought, as 
well as exchange of words, can render us familiar 
with a person. With that faculty of forgetting 
everything else, given by nature to a yoman who 
loves, she had almost forgotten the message that 
her mother had given her, as well as the scene that 
had followed it. All that had happened between 
her visit and the present hour was only a chain of 
accessory details. She did not ask herself when 
she saw Patrice : 

“What has he come to say to me?” 

She only thought : 

“How happy I am!” 

O’Farrell saluted the young lady without looking 
at her, for fear that he might forget his role. He 
took a chair a short distance from her, and said, in 
a hurried manner : 

“Mademoiselle, you hold in your hands not only 
the happiness of Godefroid, our benefactor and our 
friend, but his life.” 

“His life!” she repeated, with an effort to follow 
him in this unexpected direction. 

Patrice gave a sigh which showed that he could 
hardly continue. 

“Yes,” continued he, “his life. For if you refuse 
him he will kill himself.” 

If there existed in this world a cruel, heartless 


SEALED LIPS. 


125 


woman it certainly was not Jenny, and yet she re- 
plied, in an almost indifferent tone of voice: 

“Men very rarely kill themselves for that; above 
all at his age.” 

“ On the contray, it is at his age that they do it, 
when age has not closed their hearts. Godefroid is 
exactly the one to do it. Without God, without 
family or consolation, disappointed in the dearest 
hope of his life, never having undergone certain 
struggles, he is lost if you repulse him, he is dead ; 
it is infallible, it is true.” 

“ Mon Dieu!” said she, tremblingly, “my mother 
has gone ” 

“Your mother has gone to give him hope. I met 
her on the way, and as it was a question that con- 
cerned the life of my friend I took it upon myself 
to change the message which she confided to me.” 

“You did that!” exclaimed Jenny, in a broken 
tone; “you have done that! Oh, unfortunate!” 

Patrice gathered up these words one by one as so 
many vow-s of love. He engraved them in his 
memory to be his supreme consolation in some dis- 
tant place where he should go to end his days. As 
he kept silent she said : 

“ I understand ; you wanted to calm him, to pre- 
pare him, and gain time. You did just right. Poor 
man ! Ah ! Dieu ! I should never console myself. 

if Who ever would have suspected such a 

thing of him. 


126 


SEALED LIPS. 


“You will talk with him and make him under- 
stand that it is impossible?” 

“Why impossible?” said O’Farrell, slowly. “You 
do not like the stage. He will free you from it. 
He will give you an honored name, a comfortable 
fortune, a stainless past, and devotion without 
bounds.” 

“ What I hear is so strange,” interrupted Made- 
moiselle Sauval, “that I think my reason is giving 
way. I do not know what to say, or rather I cannot 
say what I would. I do not believe that there is an- 
other man living that would do as you are doing.” 

“ I am only doing what a devoted friend should 
do in my place. I plead Godefroid’s cause so that 
he may live and be happy.” 

“Do you remember,” said she, lowering her eyes, 
“that evening on the ice? Do you remember what 
you said? I will be a devoted brother to you, de- 
voted to you alone ! Why is it that between these 
two attachments it is the other that has the prefer- 
ence? Why do you sacrifice your sister to your 
friend?” 

“Because that friend has sacrificed himself for 
me for fifteen years. Because I owe everything to 
him ; the bread that nourished me ; the clothes that 
I wore, and more yet — the examples of courage 
and honor which he has shown me, and which have 
made a man of me. At this hour he is the weaker 
one. If you knew how he suffered, how unhappy 
and lonely he is !” 


f 


SEALED LIPS. 


127 


“Have you not returned to him?” 

“Oh!” said Patrice, shaking his head, “that is 
not the same thing. When I go Godefroid only 
loses a friend ; without me he hardly suffers. With- 
out you he will die. He must not die.” 

Jenny arose full of passionate indignation, and 
going to the mantel commenced moving in a ner- 
vous way the articles upon it. 

“And I,” said she, suddenly, “am I the only per- 
son that it does not concern? Can I not love also? 
Have I passed the age when the heart has a right 
to speak? Am I one of those creatures consecrated 
to self-denial, marked from birth to be sacrificed? 
My mother tortured me for hours this morning, 
and when I thought that I had recovered from that 
combat, behold you return to the charge, and tell 
me to marry Godefroid, whom I do not love.” 

“If you knew how good he is! How he adores 
you ; what a grateful slave you would find in him !” 

“I believe it,” replied she. “If he had spoken six 
months sooner I might perhaps have placed my 
hand in his with happiness. I must tell you that 
what you said to me only a minute ago is to-day 
another thing.” 

“Why?” asked he, in a trembling tone. 

“Do you wish to know why? Be satisfied then, 
and if you are astonished at my frankness thank 
yourself for it. In fact, I struggle to defend my 
happiness, but I struggle alone. Nevertheless, 
they shall not find in me a timid, frightened girl. 


128 


SEALED LIPS. 


Now, then, enough of this subterfuge between us. 
Yes, something has changed my life; I, too, have 
known another sentiment besides friendship. I 
love — try to find out who ; I am loved — try to dis- 
cover the man.” 

O’Farrell felt that the decisive moment had ar- 
rived. One tender glance from her eyes, and 
although he had come to sacrifice himself he would 
leave with his friend’s death-warrant in his hands. 

“I think,” said he, stammering, “that many men 
have and will love you. But of all these, one ought 
to come first in your eyes. 'One more word — has 
Godefroid done nothing for you?” 

Jenny Sauval looked at the young man, whose 
eyes were sparkling with enthusiasm. Those who 
reproached her as being ignorant of passion in her 
roles would hardly have recognized her now. In a 
vibrating voice she replied : 

“ He has made me experience the most supreme 
joy of my life.” 

Patrice was at his wits’ ends, and kept silent. 

She continued : 

“I owe it to him, having met the one that I love, 
that I shall always love, that I admire even now in 
my astonishment that a human being can carry his 
nobleness to such a height. Go, I should give you 
my heart after what I have just seen if you did not 
have it already. Keep me yours and God help us 
to save poor Godefroid.” 

At each of these words Patrice trembled as if he 


HEALED LIPS. 


129 


had been pricked by a sword. Her happiness and 
her endurance surpassed anything that he had ever 
imagined. He had come there to get himself out of 
the way, and behold ! she gave herself to him. 

Concealing as well as he could the horrible agony 
that seized him, he stammered : 

“But you are mistaken. I nave never told you 
that I love you.” 

She bounded out of her seat at these words, then 
an expression of terror passed over her counte- 
nance. But soon she regained her confidence. 

“Have pity!” said she, “do not continue. What 
will become of me if I am mistaken ! Think how 
I have seen you on your knees. Ah, do not prolong 
this unhappy untruth. Who will profit by it?” 

“Mademoiselle,” replied Patrice, “ when they 
announce to you to-morrow that I have gone to the 
ends of the earth, you will not think then that it is 
an untruth.” 

“My Heaven !” exclaimed she, wringing her 
hands. “What have I done to merit such torture? 
What secret are you concealing in your soul? Do 
you think me unworthy of you? No, certainly not, 
since you find me worthy of this friend who is of 
more account to you than all the world. Perhaps 
you efface yourself in your devotion for me so that 
I may marry a rich man! Were you thinking of 
that?’ If I sought a fortune do you think that Gode- 
froid’s would suffice me?” 

“No,” said O’Farrell, “I do not think of money. 


130 


SEALED LIPS. 


If I thought of that I should be obliged to tell you 
that I am poor, that work is my only portion. I 
am strong, and I am young — too young sometimes. 
I can struggle against life. Godefroid without you 
is lost; with him you can be happy. You know 
now the truth.” 

“Alas!” exclaimed Jenny, “the truth only is that 
I am lost, too. You have left me nothing here,” and 
she struck her breast. “You have killed all in me ; 
the love that I had hoped for, the promised friend- 
ship, pride, all hope in life. With the. man that I 
love I could be a saint. With hate, despair, eternal 
spite, who knows what kind of a woman I may 
become?” 

“Well,” said the young man, with a bitter smile, 
“at all events, I see that it is better that I should 
go. As well for the joys that I have found in Paris 
as those which await me, I like the desert and soli- 
tude much better.” 

Jenny was suddenly stricken with stupor. Her 
face fell, showing a sort of heart-broken terror that 
would have moved with compassion a stranger's 
heart. 

“Ah! I am lost! You are all against me!” 
groaned she. “Nevertheless you promised me your 
friendship. It is the only thing left for me in this 
world.” 

“If you save Godefroid, until my dying day, I 
will be your friend. I will love you like a sister, a 
sister who would have me save a life.” 


SEALED LIPS. 


131 


“Yes,” said she, shaking her head sadly, “until 
the day when another more happy ” 

Patrice interrupted her, and extended his hand 
toward her with a look that he sometimes had and 
which it was impossible not to believe. In a sweet, 
soft voice like a last adieu, he said : 

“ Rest tranquilly. That day will never come. I 
shall live and die alone. The hours that have just 
passed mark; too much in my life for me to be able 
to forget the hard lesson. Curses on love, the ruin 
and evil that it causes!” 

She fell into a chair, and buried her face in her 
hands. By the movements that she made Patrice 
saw that she was sobbing, and with a suppressed 
exclamation he darted forward; but a last glimmer 
of reason restrained him. Half crazy he reached 
the door. Jenny, terrified at the sound of his re- 
treating footsteps, cried out : 

“ Patrice!” 

He turned around, showing an agitated coun- 
tenance. 

“Oh, Heaven !” exclaimed she, in the midst of 
her tears, “I am nothing to you then, nothing, 
not even the dog that one caresses for the last 
time before giving him to another. You leave 
without saying one kind word to me, without think- 
ing that there are women who kill themselves. Are 
you going? Shall I never see you again?” 

“Upon my honor, you shall see me to-morrow,” 
said Patrice. 


132 


SEALED LIPS. 


He crossed the threshold, and carried away with 
him that cry of joy, weak, but at the same time 
harrowing, that he had just heard. 


CHAPTER XV. 

OUTBURST OF SARCASM. 

At last it was ended. 

Often Patrice would go over in his mind the tor- 
tures of that long half hour and think how if he 
had known of them in advance he could never have 
braved chem. He would have disappeared without 
saying a word, and let events take care of them- 
selves, removing by his departure all obtacles that 
Godefroid could consider him responsible for. But 
to see what he had just seen, to complete the work 
that would make his heart bleed to the end of his 
life, to lie with such cruelty, to sacrifice with such 
merciless barbarity! No, never, had he foreseen it, 
would he ever have undertaken such a task. 

While Jenny cried bitterly, over her heart but 
just awakened, now dead, her executioner, who 
was twice as much to be pitied, because he killed 
at the same blow two victims, was walking away 
quickly from the house, like a person whose in- 
stinct guides rather than the will. He walked for 
a long time, crossed squares, followed avenues, 


SEALED LIPS. 


133 


passed bridges, carriages grazed him, men with 
heavy bundles let fly imprecations at this fanatic 
who jostled against them. Pretty women, walking 
out wrapped up in their furs, sought in vain for a 
look from this young man with such a strange ex- 
pression. But he seemed unable to see and hear 
anything. The sole being who could arouse him 
from his sorrowful thoughts was a poor lost dog, 
who was dying of hunger, cold, and fatigue. In 
the angle of a wall, where the cold wind blew 
clouds of dust, the little creature was shivering 
curled up in a heap, upon some pieces of paper 
tossed there by the wind, the only bed that he could 
find as he wandered in his agony, not having 
strength to search for his master, unconscious even 
of the passers by, he laid there waiting his last 
gasp. Patrice was affected by this extreme suffer- 
ing. He stooped down and took the dog up, intend- 
ing to carry him away with him to make a com- 
panion of him, and one from which no love or duty 
could separate him. But he was too late. A grate- 
ful look from two kind, faithful eyes, an attempt at 
a caress from the already paralyzed little tongue, 
and that was all. One being less to suffer here 
below. 

Then the one who suffered yet walked away, 
thinking of the words that he had heard a weeping 
woman say : 

“ I am nothing to you, not as much as a dog that 
ope caresses before giving away,” 


134 


HEALED LIPS. 


Soon after he entered Godefroid’s library and 
found him radiant with smiles, and looking ten 
years younger. 

“Guess the reply!” exclaimed the musician, joy- 
fully. 

“I know it,” said Patrice, falling into a seat. 

“How do you know it?” 

“ I should say that 1 suspect it in seeing you so 
happy.” 

“For the time being,” said Godefroid, speaking 
with singular volubility, “she leaves the final an- 
swer for a week. But her mother — that woman is 
goodness personified — has taken care to remove all 
uneasiness from my mind. This delay of eight 
days is merely for propriety’s sake.” 

“I suppose,” said Patrice, “that in cases like this 
a young lady ought not to seem to decide too 
quickly.” 

He spoke with an involuntary touch of sarcasm. 
But Godefroid had become very philosophical now 
that philosophy was not needed, and shrugged his 
shoulders with an indulgent smile. 

“Ah! You make me angry without intending 
it,” said he. “In reality if any one rejoices at my 
happiness it is you, I am sure of that. But you can 
admit it to an old friend. Mademoiselle Sauval 
seemed to— to honor you more than others. And 
in such cases the least conceited of us do not enjoy 
seeing that they were mistaken,” 


SEALED LIIS. 


135 


“Do you still return to that?” interrupted Patrice, 
wearily. 

“ Truly, I am wrong to do so. If there was ever 
any need of it the mother’s confidences about her 
daughter would take away the least shadow of 
doubt.” 

“Then you are happy — perfectly happy?” 

“My happiness is so great that I dare not fathom 
it for fear that I shall be ingulfed in it. If I appear 
partially calm to-day it is because I am somewhat 
stupefied. I cannot yet fully realize it. But you 
can understand how I feel when you think of what 
I said to you yesterday. I repeat it again— herself 
or that. ” 

He pointed with his trembling hand to a revolver 
hanging upon the wall. Patrice’s only reply was 
a deep sigh. 

“Now,” continued Godefroid, “would you like to 
know my plans?” 

The young man could not resist this insinuation, 
“Madame Sauval’s plans, for your mother-in-law 
knows them better than you do, I presume.” 

“You will judge her less severely when you 
know her better,” prophesied Godefroid, to whom 
everything looked rose colored at this moment. 

Then he told of the arrangements already made 
for the future. His first care would be to cancel 
the singer’s engagement. As for himself, for a 
year or so ne should rest, following his own incli- 
nations and the state of his health as to when he 


136 


SEALED LIPS. 


should write again. This period of rest would be 
passed at some distance from Paris on an estate 
that Madame Sauval and her daughter owned in 
Bearn. 

“An estate!” interrupted O’Farrell. “I supposed 
that they had no fortune.” 

“ Oh ! as to that I imagine that this estate costs 
more than it brings, and that it has fewer crops 
than mortgages. But we will attend to that. We 
will live there like happy country people, looking 
after our fields and vines, contented with our own 
society. It seems, however, that it is a very pleas- 
ant neighborhood.” 

“ Then it is finita la musica ?” 

“Music!” interrupted Godefroid, with the look of 
passionate inspiration that he formerly had, but 
with a more terrestrial light now. “Music! Now 
I shall begin to write the true and only music of my 
life. Would you like to know what I think? I 
wish I had your belief that I could thank God for 
the happiness that has come to me. I feel over- 
whelmed with gratitude and without knowing who 
to thank for it. How good God is, if He exists!” 

When O’Farrell returned to his room, and 
thought over his own affairs, he felt gratified that 
fatigue of body and mind was benumbing him. 
This double and distinct exhaustion gave him the 
impression that he was two distinct beings. One, 
Godefroid’s and Jenny Sauval’s Patrice, was 
doomed to sacrifices and great unhappiness and 


SEALED LIPS. 


137 


superhuman undertakings. The other was com- 
monplace Patrice condemned by force of circum- 
stances to occupy himself unceasingly with the vul- 
gar but imperious necessities of this life. 

This Patrice of inferior position, to speak frankly, 
was not the one whose affairs were in the worst 
condition just now. However, if Godefroid was 
making plans it was time that his companion — for 
a short time only — should begin to make his. 

“What a pity that I sold my island,” thought he, 
“and above all that it is four thousand miles away! 
I would have slept there to-night. Still I should 
have no right to do so, as I promised her that I 
would see her to-morrow.” 

The next day Madame Sauval had no suspicions 
of O’Farrell, for she could see by her daughter’s 
low spirits that the new ally had acted in earnest. 
Probably he had reasons of his own for desiring 
this marriage to take place. The best thing for her 
to do was to allow him to continue his work, since 
her homilies produced so little effect. The young 
girl w~as alone when O’Farrell presented himself, 
shivering at the thought of what he had endured at 
his preceding visit. But at the first glance he saw 
that the same thing would not happen this time. 

Jenny was very calm, but evidently much ex- 
hausted with fatigue ; she offered her hand without 
glancing at him, and invited him to seat himself 
before her. In twenty-four hours her expression — 
always more serious and grave than comported with 


138 


SEALED LIPS. 


her age — had assumed that oppressed immobility 
that a secret and hopeless trouble gives one. Patrice 
seeing that she wished to speak first, remained 
silent. After a moment’s silence she commenced : 

“You surprised me so much yesterday that I lost 
all control of myself. I said certain things that I 
regret and that you must forget. Or rather — what 
is the use in not being frank? — I wish that it was 
possible for you to remember all your life what you 
know now, but to forget what you learned from my 
lips. This being granted, let us, as my mother 
would say, talk practically. Your constancy as 
regards myself has produced a result which sur- 
passes, I am sure, anything that you could have 
expected. The shock has transformed me ; I have 
reflected during the night; cunning motherly argu- 
ments have done the rest this morning. Truly, you 
might as well not have troubled yourself.” 

There was so much bitterness shown in this iron- 
ical speech that Patrice O’Farrell clenched his fists 
and uttered a low imprecation. 

With a covert glance Jenny watched him, for she 
had an end in view ; she wished to clear up a re- 
maining doubt in her mind. Since the night before 
she had thought : 

“He pretends to have had only a moment of en- 
thusiasm. I cannot believe it, he must be lying. 
But if he loves me he will betray himself.” 

Seeing that the sphinx kept silent she continued : 

“Three ways are open before me— to follow my 


SEALED LIPS. 


139 


profession, marry your friend, or let Prince Kem- 
eneff carry me away with him; he offered to do 
so some time ago. You probably will judge me 
harshly, but of these three ways the first is the one 
that pleases me the least.” 

“ Great Heaven ! is it you who are talking in this 
way?” groaned Patrice. 

“ At the very thought of putting on a costume, 
paint, and powder, and going before a crowd of 
people, to go over again for money the scenes that 
I have played au nature! with you alone to save my 

life, and with no warning Ah, no, never! 

Never again will they see Jenny Sauval pray and 
struggle, strike her breast and wring her hands for 
the amusement of others. I never had any liking 
for the stage; to-day I detest it. There remains 
Godefroid or Kemeneff. More than one in my place 
would not hesitate.” 

“Stop,” exclaimed the exasperated young man; 
“now you are playing a miserable comedy!” 

“In another way. Repulsed in sentiment, I take 
refuge in reality. Kemeneff or Godefroid— I repeat 
it, there is no medium, for I am too religious to kill 
myself and unfortunately not enough so to become 
a nun. You, it is understood, of course, are for 
Godefroid. But do you not believe that the prince 
loves me, too?” 

“Not enough to marry you.” 

“Not enough to have trouble with the Czar by 
marrying me. But if Godefroid was obliged to lose 


140 


SEALED LIPS. 


his place at the Court of Russia by marrying a 
singer we would see. However that may be, I ask 
myself what will be your reply if I say to you, One 
man only can save me from the prince, and that is 
not Godefroid!” 

“I should reply that you told an untruth. I know 
you. I know, I feel that you are incapable of such 
infamy !” 

Their eyes met. It needed all her will power to 
keep from throwing herself at his feet and thank- 
ing him for the words that he had just spoken. But 
she knew that she could never obtain any admis- 
sion from him only by surprise. She continued, 
keeping her mask of irony: 

“ Thanks for your good opinion. Between us you 
speak of it entirely at your ease, for putting a^ide 
the millions, the prince— after one other man — is 
the one who is nearest to having my heart. But if 
you should be deceived on my account? If you 
should hear this morning that Kemeneff was the 
one preferred, now, then, would it not cause you to 
beat your breast?” 

Patrice had his hand on that place, but it was not 
to perform the act of contrition. 

“I do not recognize you,” said he. 

“Nor I myself any longer. But I shall know my- 
self still less when I am Madame Godefroid. All 
the same, I think I shall take that name. What 
would you have me do? What can I do against 
three persons? Nevertheless, my mother assures 


SEALED LIPS. 


141 


me as you do, that I shall be very happy, and make 
your friend very happy. Tkat will be a pleasure 
for you, will it not, to contemplate our happiness? 
For, you know, it will be your work.” 

“Yes, but I shall not see it. You know very well 
that I am going away.” 

“Oh, not before our marriage,” said she, imperi- 
ously. “If you leave it will not take place. It is a 
condition sine qua non. You will be your friend’s 
witness.” 

“It is impossible,” stammered Patrice. “I must 
— I cannot ” 

Jenny’s eyes sparkled, her face was animated 
with a supreme hope. She seemed to wait for one 
word, one gesture from this man that she loved. 
Seeing that he would say nothing, she continued : 

“Then we are of one opinion. All is ended, and 
well ended. Now listen to what I am going to tell 
you, take good notice ; you know that I do not love 
Godefroid; I shall tell him so, rest assured; you 
know that I love another man. Very well, at the 
very last minute, no matter what time or place, 
even if in the mayor’s office, you have only to do 
like this” (she moved her finger in the air) “and I 
shall remain Jenny Sauval.” 

“ Ah ! poor Godefroid !” exclaimed the young man, 
putting his hands before his eyes. 

“ Have no fears about him. I will oblige you to 
admit that I am good for something. You will be 
obliged to esteem me. More yet— when you hear 


142 


SEALED LIPS. 


your friend say that I am good and faithful you 
will think : She would have done like this if she 
had been at the end of the world — to obey me. And 
if he writes you some day, Jenny is dead, you will 
think ” 

“For the love of Heaven,” interrupted Patrice, 
“have pity upon me.” 

“You are right. I was really becoming senti- 
mental. Let us drop the subject. For the last 
time Jenny Sauval has told the secret of her heart, 
betrayed, but all in vain. Adieu!” 

When the young man had disappeared she bowed 
her head, and thought over all that had passed dur- 
ing the last hour : 

“I have extorted nothing from him but a little 
compassion,” thought she. “But I shall always 
suspect; I ” 


SEALED LIPS. 


143 


CHAPTER XVI. 

SEPARATION. 

When Patrice left Jenny he was careful not to 
repeat his exhausting walk of the night before. He 
did not wish to expose himself to the ordeal of an- 
other hour like that, and then, too, it was necessary 
to busy himself about his future, for he was re- 
solved to leave Paris the day of Godefroid’s 
marriage. 

For the hero of a classical romance situated as he 
was, to leave Paris meant to go home, give his valet 
orders, be driven to the station, dine in the refresh- 
ment-room, if the appetite had not been destroyed 
with hope, and at last to establish himself in a sleep- 
ing compartment engaged in advance, looking at 
the porter with an envious eye, thinking that he 
was destined to grow old without any of these 
troubles. 

But this kind of a comfortable, elegant suicide is 
not within reach of us all. For more than one rea- 
son Patrice could not think of affording this. He 
was somewhat like those desperate creatures very 
anxious to pay for the rope that is to hang them. 
The first thing was to find the rope, that is to say 
some business that would enable him to live else- 
where, and which would pay in advance the ex- 


144 


SEALED LIPS. 


pense of the journey, for now from a feeling easily 
understood, the young man would not accept aid 
from his friend’s purse. 

He did not have to search long; thanks to the 
friends that he had made among people in colonial 
enterprises, he found a situation that under less 
dramatic circumstances he would have disdained. 
It concerned the direction of a forest in Algeria, 
granted to a society whose administrators were 
more or less millionaires and consequently ama- 
teurs in quiet life, in no haste to leave the boule- 
vard or the opera for the mountains. 

Three days after his last visit to Rue de Yienne, 
Patrice was in the heat of business transactions, 
and saw Godef roid only at diner ; then the conver- 
sation between the two friends was of such a weari- 
some character that neither felt the slightest desire 
to prolong it longer than necessary. The composer 
was secretly annoyed at his companion’s obstinacy 
in not speaking to him of his approaching mar- 
riage, and in this affected silence he thought he 
saw anger or disapprobation. He, to retaliate, 
avoided questioning the man as to his own plans; 
Patrice, although he had other griefs more bitter, 
was deeply hurt at his want of interest. 

Finally the day arrived that Mademoiselle Sauval 
was to give her definite response. 

“Has she replied yet?” O’Farrell would ask him- 
self as he went from office to bank. “Has the final 
answer been spoken? Will some supreme revolt 


SEALED LIPS. 


145 


make her hesitate? It seems to me I must have 
taken away the slightest hope from her. Oh, my 
stars ! Let us hope that I shall not be forced again 
to stamp this love under my feet. I could not do 
it. There are resolutions that one cannot keep but 
once.” 

When he returned at night there was no need to 
ask if Mademoiselle Sauval had given her reply, 
Godefroid was so disturbed in looks and appearance. 
He thought at first by his friend’s tragic air that the 
response had been in the negative. He hesitated to 
ask a question, knowing the storm to which he 
would expose himself, but Godefroid without offer- 
ing him his hand as usual thundered out upon him 
with angry looks : 

“ How you must have laughed at me the other 
night!” 

Greatly discouraged to think that he had suffered 
so much for nothing, O’Farrell asked: 

“Then she has refused you?” 

“ Oh, no ! Rest easy in your mind. All goes as 
you wish. This afternoon in the presence of her 
mother she gave me her consent.” 

“Well, what then?” 

“ She gave me her hand with the polite regret 
that she could not give me more. “ My heart is not 
free,” she said, after the most approved and conse- 
crated style. And I, ridiculous fool that I was, I 
consoled you for her having forgotten you so soon. 


146 


SEALED LIPS. 


You could not but laugh, or rather you ought to 
have laughed at my simplicity.” 

“ Did she tell you that she loved me?” 

“Not so foolish ! She gave no name. You have 
nothing to reproach her with. She was discretion 
itself.” 

“Do you know that I have seen her twice?” 

“And that to obey you she marries me. Yes, I 
know it. Probably you thought that I should be 
affected, and admire your self-denial. You are 
mistaken ; I see clearly now ; I understand every- 
thing. Ah, you are cunning creatures! Others 
would have made a fool of the husband vulgarly 
speaking. You two people, honest after a fashion, 
you wait ; the future is before you. What could 
you do now for Jenny Sauval? You have nothing 
but a stainless name, which would lose its immacu- 
lateness if the Countess O’Farrell should continue 
on the stage, a necessary sacrifice, if she should 
marry you. I arrange all. I take your beloved 
from the theater, I give her my name and money, 
at least you expect it. Certainly the widow of 
Godefroid, the composer, is not a brilliant match 
for a gentleman of as good blood as you are, but 
honor is safe, and I do not look like a man who 
would make you wait very long.” 

“Admit now that you are not the one who has 
imagined all this,” said Patrice, with a flash of 
f anger from his eyes. “ I should think that 1 heard 
Madame Sauval speaking. Admit that she was the 


SEALED LIPS. 


147 


one that suggested this ignoble suspicion. It would 
be less hard to bear.” 

Godefroid turned away his eyes, ashamed of him- 
self, but muttering between his teeth with an angry 
look. The young man drew near him, and placing 
his hand upon his shoulder, he sighed : 

“Oh, my friend! how unhappy we are. Our 
friendship, our esteem, our confidence, which is 
almost as old as we are, totters and almost threat- 
ens to crumble away. Why? because a woman has 
glanced at us and the folds of her dress have rustled 
between us. This woman is the most noble and 
loyal of creatures. I love her more than anything 
else in this world. But I never have thought of dis- 
puting for her with you. How would it be if I were 
your rival? Listen! the future is greater than we. 
But before we penetrate into the unknown by two 
entirely different routes, we must take care to leave 
behind us no doubt as to the great affection that 
has existed between us for so long a time. We are 
going to part, to meet again, I hope, but if it should 
be otherwise, if one of us should die suddenly, we 
must not add to the sorrow at the loss of a friend, 
you, remorse, for having misjudged me, and I, grief, 
at having submitted to such injustice. Listen— if 
you die before I do your wife shall never become 
mine. Receive my solemn oath, and may it take 
away all suffering from you. How, you will be- 
lieve, will you not, that I am not speculating upon 
your death or fortune?” 


148 


SEALED LIPS. 


“ You will never know,” replied Godefroid, with- 
out raising his head, “how small I feel before you. 
There is only one thing greater in my life, that is 
love. It is that that I drink, breathe, and eat ; it 
replaces sleep, for I have not slept for a long time ; 
it replaces music, which was my God, but it also 
replaces, one might say, my reason and conscience. 
Now then, it is fortunate that I am not separated 
from Jenny by a crime.” 

“Nothing can separate you,” said O'Farrell, un- 
easy at this over excitement. “ She will be yours. 
Be happy, but above all be calm. To make her love 
you, to give her the happiness that she merits, you 
must be very kind and sensible, too. A little while 
ago you were not so ” 

“ How could I know that it was not you that she 

meant? Oh, that name Why did she not speak 

it? Perhaps it is yours?” 

“Other men have approached her much more 
likely to please than I.” 

“It is Prince Kemeneff, doubtless?” 

“Now, then! Calm yourself. Respect the young 
girl’s secrets. All have them. Do not punish us, 
her for being frank, and me for having struggled 
and conquered her scruples. Oh, my friend, do not 
forget that I am your surety for the happiness that 
you must give her. And now enough of agitation. 
We have work before us. You to prepare for your 
marriage and I for my journey, and yet” (he tried 


SEALED LIPS. 


149 


to laugh) “you have Madame Sauval to assist you, 
and I have nobody.” 

“ When do you leave, and where are you going?” 
asked Godefroid, as if this idea was entirely unex- 
pected to him. 

“I am going to Algeria to cut wood, but I do not 
run any risk of losing money. My head and my 
arms are all that I put in this business. This time 
I shall succeed.” 

“Ah!” groaned Godefroid, as he passed his hand 
over his forehead, “ I am the one that obliges you 
to leave. To have this woman I sacrifice my only 
friend. What name do you give to what I am 
doing?” 

“Love,” said O’Farrell, slowly. 

“ And you, would you sacrifice me to gratify your 
love?” 

“No, with the help of God,” replied the young 
man. 

These words, said in a low tone, framed the only 
reproach that Antoine Godefroid ever heard from his 
friend’s mouth. Only death, which is more power- 
ful that love even, could break this friendship. 
This short response penetrated to the very heart of 
the one who heard it. He arose and started to walk 
away, but he tottered, for he was far from having 
regained his health. As he leaned on the table for 
support his eyes met the smiling face of Patrice’s 
mother in its golden frame. He looked at it for 
some time without speaking. It was the picture of 


150 


SEALED LIPS. 


his benefactress. Taking it from its case he placed 
his lips upon its tarnished exterior for the last time. 
Then bending toward Patrice with an humble, al- 
most abashed attitude, he presented him with this 
precious relic of a never-to-be-forgotten time, but 
ended now forever.” 

“Take it with you,” said he. “I have no longer a 
right to keep it. Now leave me, I wish to be alone.” 

Thus their separation was consummated, waiting 
for the final parting. 

Three weeks passed before the marriage-day 
arrived ; they were long ones for all. Fortunately, 
the various steps to be taken and plans to be ar- 
ranged kept them apart during the day, and Gode- 
froid passed the greater part of his evenings with 
Jenny. Every time he went there he found her 
more beautiful, and felt that he was to be pitied; as 
time went on, this unfortunate Pygmalion thought 
he could see his marble idol harden. 

The journals announced the marriage, and it 
made quite a stir, although the composer was in a 
fair way to be forgotten, and his intended had 
never been completely “the fashion.” The public, 
or at least that part of it who pretended to be inter- 
ested in music, were not deceived as to Godefroid's 
future. Everybody considered that he had written 
his last note, and to be just many people deplored 
“this premature eclipse of undoubted talent,” to 
speak after the manner of critics. 

Others affirmed that he was “drained” when 


SEALED LIPS. 


151 


“Constantin” was written, and that he made the 
great mistake of his life the day he left off writing 
operettas, to which he owed his success, and took 
up grand opera. 

The envious trampled on their enemy’s body, 
peddling the blackest of lies. According to the 
imagination of these story-tellers he was first a 
child found in a farmer’s cabin, then the cleverly 
disguised proof of some great lady’s weakness. As 
to the music of “Constantin,” he did not write it, 
but a comrade who died in his arms when at the 
college in Rome, and from whom he had stolen it, 
without the slightest scruples. 

Among his devoted partisans, for he was not 
without them, the greater part, his physician in par- 
ticular, thought his future more gravely affected 
physically than morally, and spoke of this idea of 
marriage, shaking his head and shrugging his 
shoulders. 

Thank Heaven, Godefroid heard only a small part 
of these unpleasant rumors, but he partly suspected 
the rest, and the joy mixed with agony that he 
found in his new happiness was seasoned with in- 
numerable mortifications. The saying, “That the 
hours that precede an unexpected happiness are 
more delicious than the happiness itself,” was not 
true in his case. On the morning of the first of 
May the three persons most concerned in our story 
were not sleeping. The only one who was com- 
pletely and peaceably happy was Madame Sauval. 


152 


SEALED LIPS. 


Everything had come out as she had patiently and 
cunningly prepared for it. Her daughter was not 
a princess, not yet, hut she was to marry a rich 
man, who would leave her his money without 
doubt, and of whom the physician had said the 
night before to this model of mothers-in-law : 

“We have prolonged his life as one draws out 
a metal wire in thinning it. Beware of sudden 
shocks. Luckily, if he does leave a young and 
beautiful widow for you to look after, you will not 
have the trouble of caring for his orphans.” 

But Madame Sauval’s gratification did not end 
there. In one of his confidential moments Gode- 
froid, who was desirous of taking away all sus- 
picion of his friend’s disinterestedness, told her of 
a ceriain stormy interview followed by a solemn 
vow, and the Roumanian was immediately reas- 
sured. When the hour came Kemeneff would have 
no competitor. 

Everything was working for the best. Pomeyras 
would receive the newly married couple the next 
day. After a few days she would rejoin them to 
pass the summer there. She could already see her- 
self lady of the house, a role that she had played so 
little, that if not perfectly satisfactory, would at 
least freshen her ambition while waiting for better. 
This “better” was just now in Russia, trying to con- 
sole himself without succeeding very well, and hear- 
ing as little as possible about the marriage. This 
justice is due Kemeneff. 


SEALED LIPS. 


153 


As he entered the mayor’s office Godefroid walked 
as if in an unknown and supernatural world. He 
asked himself how this person who sat reading 
papers behind a desk and looked like all other 
people, could accomplish an act worthy of God, and 
throw by one word this woman that he had adored 
for years into his arms. He pronounced with im- 
patient avidity the word that was to bind him for- 
ever to the idol of his heart and eyes. It was 
Jenny’s turn to reply to the important question. 
But before giving up her liberty, while they ques- 
tioned her as to the spelling of her name, she bent 
her charming head slightly forward, and sought 
Patrice’s face, who stood a few paces from her. 
It seemed as if the victim while already at the 
altar, turned to make a last appeal for her liberty. 
For a second the energy of this appeal was heart- 
breaking to the young man. He understood that 
his beloved wished him to save her. He remem- 
bered the words that she had spoken one day : 

“Whatever the hour may be it will be sufficient if 
you move one finger!” 

Then he saw for the last time what might have 
been his future. A rapid glance showed him long 
years of happiness by the side of this woman, who 
implored him by a look, who was ready to follow 
him to the ends of the earth. Then another vision 
rose up before him, Godefroid dying of despair, and 
cursing him with his last breath, his heart full of 
rage against this— 


154 


SEALED LIPS. 


Patrice turned his eyes away, and all was ended. 
The “yes” was spoken, and then a formula, cold as 
a sentence was read, which sealed the fate of three 
people. The sigh that escaped O’Farrell’s lips was 
almost one of relief. 

They went at once to the church, where he felt 
less unhappy, as is usually the case with a religious 
person. At first he gave himself up to the power- 
ful impression of calmness that seemed to come 
from the vaulted room with its soft light through its 
stained glass windows, and burying his face in his 
hands he tried to pray. This desire was the only 
thing of which his troubled heart was capable of. 
Then with that desire that is in all of us to flee 
from suffering he tried tc forget the place where he 
was, and to think of his home in Africa, toward 
which that night’s tram would carry him. 

Suddenly the organ pealed forth — a delicate hom- 
age rendered the composer— one of the sweetest 
love melodies in “Constantin.” Patrice was unable 
to struggle against his thoughts any longer. He 
gave it up, and drank the poison of the tender har- 
mony, remembering the first evening when he lis- 
tened to this woman who had captured his heart 
and soul forever. 

At last the ceremony was ended, and as he 
touched Jenny’s hand, her cheeks became redder 
and redder, until they looked as if she had a fever. 

Without replying to the laborious congratulations 
expressed by Patrice, she asked : 


SEALED LIPS. 


155 


“When do you leave?” 

“This evening, by the Marseilles express. 

“And we by the Bordeaux express,” said she, in 
a low tone that he only could hear. 

“I wish you a happy voyage,” said Patrice. 

That evening, leaning on the window of the car 
which was flying over the plains of Villeneuve 
Saint Georges, the new colonist to Algeria watched 
the last rays of daylight fading away and a ribbon 
of white smoke curling among the tops of the green 
poplars on the other side of the Seine. 

“Perhaps that train is the one that carries her 
away,” thought Patrice. 

Soon the trains moved away from each other just 
as the lives of these two beings were separated. 
Night enveloped the earth, and in the traveler’s 
heart the darkest of shadows seemed to obscure all 
hope. 


156 


SEALED LIPS. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

“AT LAST.” 

The Chateau de Pomeyras is neither for sale nor 
to let, otherwise it would be recommended as a 
residence after one’s own heart for lovers or a per- 
son in ill-health. At the north a gently sloping 
stretch of meadow land, flanked by well trained 
vines protected the house from the not frequent 
but treacherous winds from the mashers. On the 
other side the view extended over a space, broken 
up by successive views, like the shifting scenes on 
a stage, with the Pyrenees for a curtain in the 
background. First came the garden, which was so 
small that Madame Sauval did not dare to call it a 
park, but she called the little cottage a “chateau.” 
There grew and turned green on good terms with 
each other plants from all latitudes— the magnolia, 
with its. foliage of hard leaves ; the araucaria, in 
tiers like the shelves of a sideboard ; the oleander, 
with its melancholy beauty ; the larch, elegant in 
her delicate suppleness, and the pine, this moun- 
taineer that is always wild even when it leaves its 
solitary heights for civilized gardens. 

During the winter the slightest rays of the sun 
would heat like a hot-house the narrow gravel walk 
which was in front of the house. In warm summer 


SEALED LIPS. 


157 


days this place became uninhabitable. But the 
oa£ path at the end of the garden, with its healthy 
freshness, was reserved for promenades. Twisted 
and knotty, but of medium height in spite of their 
centuries, these trees were as different from the 
giants of Fontainebleau as the thickset Bearnais 
to the erect and lofty Comtois. Full of sap, and 
very vigorous, they formed, with their verdure 
which was opened to the sun, a cloister one hun- 
dred feet long. It was an exquisite, silent retreat, 
only disturbed by the noise of the black wood- 
peckers, who attack with their bills the cancerous, 
rough bark of the trees, which swarms with insects. 

There, even in the heavy, lukewarm days of 
July, the breeze never went to sleep. Sometimes it 
came heavily charged with the resinous odor of 
pines brought with heavy rumblings on certain 
days from Cape Brittany. Then it came again 
charged with the faint odor of hay which the pretty 
Basquaise, in her bare feet, spread on the other side 
of the stream. The place was not crossed by any 
road. One must understand it to be able to go 
there and follow the gray, clayey road which dead- 
ened the sound of every footstep. Carriages them- 
selves rolled over the ground without awaking the 
tranquil echo. 

Nevertheless, it is not a desert. Every hour a 
thick wdiite smoke is seen over the tops of the wil- 
lows and poplars growing along the banks of the 
stream for at least half a league. This is the smoke 


158 


SEALED LIPS. 


from cars which are hurrying along toward Bay- 
onne or Pau, which are equally distant, and will 
deposit the traveler at the foot of the Chateau 
Henry IV., or upon the wharf of the Adour, dotted 
with vessels. To reach Paris, one must admit, is a 
long journey, but the new-comers to Pomeyras do 
not intend to take this trip often enough to tire 
themselves. 

The day that Godefroid left for this oasis of sim- 
plicity and peace, was, doubtless, the happiest he 
would ever know in this life. For the first time he 
saw a genuine smile on Jenny’s face, when she 
stepped to the ground on this lovely May evening, 
before the door of the little house where she was 
born. Upon the steps the servants awaited their 
mistress, who had been absent so long. There were 
only two of them — Marcelline, dressed in a dark 
woolen gown, and her head covered wuth a hand- 
kerchief, and Pierre, her father’s old servant, in 
his Sunday clothes, and cleanly shaven, was twirl- 
ing in his hands his blue woolen cap. Marcelline 
clasped her hands and pressed them against her 
lips, not daring to take a step toward this beautiful 
woman, so elegantly clothed, and so grand, that 
she hardly recognized her. Nevertheless, she had 
nursed her when she was first born with a love that 
her own children might well be jealous of. Jenny, 
the great singer, applauded, crowned, and feted by 
dukes and princes, gave one bound, and threw her- 
self upon her nurse’s neck. Then she embraced 


SEALED LIPS. 


159 


Pierre, who awaited his turn as a perfectly natural 
thing. What embarrassed this good man was to 
have forgotten French that he had formerly learned 
in more than twenty different garrisons. The 
greetings ended, before she entered the house she 
took her husband’s arm, he, too, being moved at 
the sight of such joy. 

“Come and see,” said she, “what I love the best 
at Pomeyras, next to these good people, of course.” 

Almost running — everything reminded her so 
much of her youth — she led him to her dear oak 
wall under which the shades were gathering al- 
ready, although the tardy buds had not yet opened. 

“Oh, my beloved old trees!” said she, sending 
them kisses with her hand, “there you are. 1 have 
found you again. Did you expect me? How happy 
I am to see you once more!” 

“And I,” said Godefroid, very low, “how happy I 
am to see you happy.” 

“Oh, yes, very happy,” said she. “Why do cer- 
tain places seem made for happiness, as a church 
for prayer? Here I always seem to be protected 
against sorrow. When, as a child, I was punished 
for some naughty action I always came here to tell 
my troubles to these trees and to complain of too 
great severity. I know them all, not by name, but 
by their looks. There are some of them so placidly 
good-natured, always disposed to give me advice. 
Others deformed in their obesity, stunted, and dis- 
figured by knots, seemed always ready to laugh 


160 


SEALED LIES. 


with me, a malicious laugh, but so good. The 
others, so straight and delicate, shining in their 
bark-like, well-brushed coats, inspired me with less 
confidence than the others. I never stopped near 
them to read or to play ; I was always alone, for 
my mother was constantly seated at her table, busy 
with her letters or accounts. As to my father, I 
remember him as being good, but quiet, and always 
sad. Oh, how I have missed him all my life !” 

Godefroid drank down eagerly these words, al- 
though they were not what a husband burning with 
love and on his wedding-day might prefer to hear. 
But what happiness it was to be alone with this 
woman, now his own, to have her on his arm, to 
hear her voice, to witness her happiness, and to say 
to her, “I am the one w T ho has given this all to you.” 
He dared not speak. What he wished to say, what 
he felt, resembled so little this pure dream of ten- 
der youth, which unbosomed itself in his presence, 
as if he was only one more tree, added to those of 
whom his wife was speakng. Ever since they had 
left Paris, ever since the silence of the country had 
surrounded them, he had felt his love grow more 
timid and younger. If he had loved when he was 
twenty years old, it would have been like this mo- 
ment when the slightest rustle of her dress moved 
him like an exquisite melody. 

When they reached the last arch of the trees it 
was nearly sunset, and the daylight was fading 
away. A silvery vapor spread over the haziness of 


SEALED LIPS. 


161 


the horizon, leveling the inequalities, and seeming 
to drown all noise. Upon the pale green sky was 
displayed the boldest of rosy sunsets. Both of them 
stopped, overwhelmed with this all powerful peace, 
which their tired hearts needed so much. But this 
salutary weakness was soon interrupted. Jenny 
was leaning on Godefroid’s arm in a more aban- 
doned way, and he felt coursing through his veins 
the long suppressed ardor. Incapable of contain- 
ing himself any longer, impatient for a first caress, 
which until now he had never been able to ask for, 
he fell on his knees, and imprinted a burning kiss 
upon his wife’s hand. 

“ Oh, my beloved !” sighed lie. “ At last !” 

At these words Jenny awoke from her dream, she 
remembered. Her childhood was far away. Many 
years and many changes had taken place in her 
life since these old oaks saw her wandering under 
their shade for the last time. Then she was alone ; 
her short dress did not sweep the dust from the 
walk. And now a man was on his knees kissing 
her hand ; this man was her husband, her master, 
and during this time the man that she loved, who 
would not take her— why?— was on the ocean, say- 
ing adieu to the shores of France. She commenced 
to cry so silently that Godefroid, kneeling before 
her, did not see her tears! This thought filled her 
soul with bitterness : 

“ They are all against me, all. But he is the one I 


162 SEALED LIPS. 

have obeyed. Oh, Heaven! shall I have strength 
to endure this life?” 

Suddenly the bell on the top of the house rang 
out in clear, joyous tones, giving her hope. 

“Come,” said she to herself, “your home awaits 
you; the lighted hearth calls you. Thus, like a 
long exiled queen, you return to the places that are 
so dear to you. Here you will live in peace, free 
from all odious contact, surrounded by happiness 
and liberty. Come, and do not be ungrateful to the 
one who loves you and has given you all these 
joys, whom your kindness will make live, your 
hardness kill.” 

Then, subdued by the all-powerful sentiment of 
justice in her, Madame Godefroid leaned her face 
toward her husband and said, in a sweet voice : 

“ To you, my dear, I owe the supreme happiness 
of my return to this house ; without you it would no 
longer be mine ; I shall never forget it, and if God 
hears my prayers I will be a good, devoted, and 
faithful wife, one worthy of you.” 

He pressed her to his heart with such an impulse 
of tenderness that it made her shiver. An innocent 
falsehood came to her aid, and freed her. 

“Come to dinner,” said she. “I am hungry.” 

They retraced their steps rapidly ; Godefroid feel- 
ing his wife shiver was uneasy on account of the 
heavy dew. 

“Really,” said she, “it is quite damp.” 

It was not the dampness that made her shiver ; 


SEALED LIPS. 


163 


she thought that the time would come when she 
could not lie. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

AMONG THE ARABS. 

A rider, clothed in light colored flannel, with 
fawn-colored leather boots and an Indian helmet, 
was climbing the slight slope which incloses the 
southern part of the chalky plains of Bel- Abbes. 
The majestic Arab, who served as guide, was as- 
tonished to see a Frenchman capable of going for 
hours without speaking a word ; but as they traveled 
Mohammed felt great admiration for the vigorous 
energy and equestrian skill of his companion. Dis- 
daining the hot, burning road, they spurred their 
horses straight on before them, as if in an open 
desert, through the labyrinth of entangled bushes. 

Patrice O’Farrell will be no more tired when he 
reaches the station, fifteen leagues distant (they 
have already traveled half the distance) than he 
was after his stormy sea-voyage. A trip like this 
was mere play for this man, who has been tossed 
about on the Indian Ocean for weeks at a time, 
who had gone hundreds of miles by means of the 
most atrocious of transports, an elephant’s back. 
Nevertheless, in comparison with the frightful 
overwhelming lassitude that oppressed his heart, 


164 


SEALED LIPS. 


the complete annihilation of his body seemed to 
him a happy and salutary diversion. The blinding 
dust, the scorching sun, his choking thirst are to 
him like caresses when he thinks of the hours that 
he passed not long since, in his comfortable cham- 
ber in Paris, lulled by the pleasures of luxurious 
hospitality and his soul torn by a hopeless agony. 
Oh ! if only this torture would calm down ! If only 
a sympathetic voice would promise him that he 
should forget at the last turn of the road, with what 
joy he would ride for days, entire weeks even with- 
out complaint. To only forget! Each bounding 
step cried out a name, a crowd of inexorable re- 
membrances, invisible but tenacious, and never 
changing, haunted him. When Mohammed turned 
in his red leather saddle to see if all was well, his 
great dark eyes made the young man tremble as he 
thought of that other look, which asked him with 
such silent despair the tender question, to which he 
had replied by a falsehood. It was so as not to tell 
the truth, for now, above all times, he must keep 
silent ; it was to lie more surely, that he had gone 
far from her to this great wall of mountains, at the 
foot of which he could confide his secret to the 
rocks and trees, the sole confidants of his trouble. 

They were nearing their destination ; already the 
hillocks began to appear, clusters of pine trees were 
to be seen. Before undertaking the steep ascent 
the guide, by a motion of his hand, advised a short 
halt, for he made it a point of honor, and felt that 


SEALED LIPS. 


165 


an Arab lowered himself by talking when a Euro- 
pean obstinately kept silence. The riders left their 
saddles near a spring that was partially dried up, 
and while the horses greedily devoured their bag of 
barley Patrice nibbled at, without knowing what 
he ate, a bit of hard bread and some cold meat 
which Mohammed took out of the holster. 

Not far from them an Arab was turning with his 
wooden plowshare the straight piece of ground 
which had been already despoiled of its first har- 
vest. Bending over the handle of his rustic imple- 
ment the Mussulman walked in the furrows, threat- 
ening, each in turn, with his guttural cries, the two 
creatures that composed his yoke; on the left a 
thin, hairless donkey ; on the right, going abreast 
with her companion in yoke, was a creature so 
black, so dilapidated and deformed, and so old, that 
Patrice had to look a second time to recognize that 
it. was a woman. This unfortunate creature, nearly 
cut in two by the hair rope with which she was 
harnessed, was a woman, perspiring and puffing 
beside this other beast of burden, not much less 
resigned but less unconscious of its misery, but 
doubtless not more precious to her master. 

Who would believe it? The sight of this lament- 
able specimen of African civilization, the sight of 
this poor monster worthy of pity, made O’Farrell’s 
thoughts turn with more sadness yet toward the 
woman, who in his eyes was the personification of 
charm, grace, and poetry, 


166 


SEALED LIPS. 


“Perhaps,” thought he, “the yoke with which 
she is burdened because I willed it so is none the 
less hard for her delicate shoulders to bear than 
the cords that cut into this poor creature’s flesh. 
Perhaps she sighs more ardently for liberty than 
this miserable slave!” 

Each time that the African reached the end of a 
furrow and repassed before him, throwing a sor- 
rowful, half-famished glance at the bread, the 
young emigrant turned away his eyes, heart-sick 
with discouragement. As to the guide, one could 
easily see that in his eyes it was the most natural 
thing in the world. 

As soon as the horses had taken breath, finished 
their rations, and nearly emptied the shallow 
spring, Mohammed received orders to prepare for his 
departure. Soon the riders weie in their saddles, 
and when Patrice, after a short ride, was in the 
depths of the forest his thoughts became a little 
less bitter. 

He felt that he was nearing that great consoler 
that he had come so far to seek — work. 

He was at first deceived by the appearance of 
these trees, stunted, twisted, and knotty, scattered 
about like disordered troops and crowned with 
scanty dark foliage. What a difference from Euro- 
pean trees and more yet with those giants on the 
borders of the Mi-Kong, under whose branches our 
cathedrals could hide their apses. In the midst of 
these Algerian thickets there was no freshness, no 


SCALED LIPS. 


167 


mystery, no singing of birds, not one of those pro- 
longed, dreamy echoes whose wail resounds under 
the humid vaults of our woods. 

For two hours Patrice continued on his way, in- 
terrupted only by meeting a few Arabs hunting 
hares, partridges, or grouse, or by the passing of a 
line of camels with their grimacing, unhappy faces, 
going toward the sea laden with produce from the 
interior. Already the approach of regular cultiva- 
tion could be seen. Roads were marked out. This 
unfinished way was used as a footpath ; the foot- 
paths became hollowed out ruts. They met carts 
loaded with wood symmetrically arranged going to 
Bel-Abbes. Tents of camePs hair striped with 
bands of black and red were to be seen here and 
there. Chickens were pecking at the dusty ground, 
where naked children were rolling about under the 
care of dogs, who barked at the approach of the 
riders. At last, in a completely cleared space a 
bordj appeared. It was Telagh. 

Patrice restrained the stallion from Tiaret, who 
was anxious to reach the stables, and gazed at his 
future residence. Before him was an oblong square 
of yellow walls pierced by loop-holes confining in 
its inclosure the buildings of the old Algerian 
troops, granted by government to be used as the 
center for forest improvements. 

Soon satisfied with his examination, he passed 
through the large door, painted green, which stood 
wide open. The interior court was one hundred 


168 


HEALED LIPS. 


feet by fifty, well built, and resembling cavalry 
quarters. 

“Monsieur O’Farrell?” asked a French soldier, in 
his concise tones, advancing before him, having 
put on for the . occasion, over his best vest, his 
Italian medal and his cross. 

“Yes,” replied the young man, as he jumped to 
the ground. “And you, doubtless, are the over- 
seer, Lafon?” 

“Formerly sub-officer of the Algerian troops, yes, 
monsieur,” responded this person as he made the 
regular salute. “ Here is my wife, who comes to 
pay her respects.” 

The couple were not at all alike. The husband, 
before whom Patrice, in spite of his tall stature, 
seemed of ordinary height, was thin, bony, and 
singularly agile, notwithstanding his fifty years; 
his face was furrowed and scarred, making one 
think of Don Quixote. Madame Lafon was small 
and round as a ball, with a plump, red face that 
shone like a tomato, she could pass for a Sancho 
Panza in petticoats. She made her courtesy to the 
traveler at the same time tugging away at the nar- 
row sleeves of her dress to pull them down over her 
large arms. Then turning toward a little servant- 
girl, who looked like a wild gazelle, and had tim- 
idly ventured to take a peep at the new-comer: 

“Djemoul! I see you!” exclaimed she, in a voice 
that made the child flee, and an imperceptible 


SEALED LI! S. 


169 


shiver run over the long body of the officer himself. 

Then, smoothing down her voice and her face, 
she invited Patrice to take possession of his rooms. 
They were in a separate building in the rear of the 
court upon which were these words, “ Officers’ 
Pavilion.” The new-comer forthwith selected the 
best room on the first floor, but empty as a convent 
parlor, and scrupulously clean. The windows 
looked out over the walls upon the woods. Patrice’s 
baggage, which had arrived the night before, was 
soon placed temporarily in his room. But he was a 
true horseman, and only took time to remove his 
boots and refresh himself with a cold water bath 
before he went to the stables to look after the vali- 
ant beast who had carried him almost fifteen 
leagues without stopping. 

He dined alone, as often would happen to him in 
the future. Djemoul waited upon the table under 
the direction of Madame Lafon, who, between each 
dish, made her appearance to inquire as to the suc- 
cess of the cooking. At dessert she did not leave 
again, seeing by Patrice’s smile that her ado 
amused him. At this moment the poor fellow 
would have given a great deal to be left to himself. 
Happy to have such a listener, the good woman 
ga^e him a sketch of her life. She told him of her 
youthful days in Marseilles, where she remembered 
with pride that she had been one of the best dress- 
makers and not one of the least courted. Perhaps, 


170 


SEALED LIPS. 


she admitted, she had been a little giddy, but she 
added, with a glance from her black eyes : 

“Nevertheless, the only man who could ever re- 
proach me was the one who never complained. Do 
you understand? I had the good luck to find a 
good man. The soldier returned to me after seven 
years, the only one who had changed, for he had a 
saber wound, and I was just the same as when he 
had left me, as sure as my name is Coralie. After 
we were married I came to Africa with him, where 
he had a desire to establish himself. If anybody 
had told me, when I was trying dresses on beauti- 
ful women, that I should end my days in the midst 

of people who wore none Ah, love, monsieur, 

you have no idea what it does to one ! Is there any 
news from Marseilles?” 

During all this time one could hear Lafon swear- 
ing in the open court, which was full of teams that 
were returning. Soon all was silent, the carts were 
drawn up in lines under the sheds like artillery 
wagons in the field ; it was fast growing dark, and 
Patrice went to his chamber, and leaning out of the 
open window he smiled with melancholy disdain 
at the thought of this large matron and her words : 

“You have no idea what love does!” 

He#wanted to call her back to say: 

“Poor, ignorant creature, what was your love 
beside mine?” 

But this woman had a right to speak of love, she 
who ha.d waited for her lover so piany years, who 


SEALED LIPS. 


171 


had sacrificed so much to follow him into a desert 
which to all apppearanees would be their tomb. 
Patrice could not help smiling at the thought that a 
human creature beside himself could pretend to 
know what love and suffering were. For with the 
same false balance we weigh sorrow or iniquity 
according as it concerns others or ourselves. The 
mote in a prevaricating neighbor’s eyes becomes 
the crushing beam. When it concerns pain it is 
the thorn that we have hardly drawn blood with, 
which assumes the proportions of a double-edged 
sword. 

Patrice did not smile for long, a thought passed 
through his mind that was, at this time, more over- 
excited than calm, owing to the fatigue of his 
journey. 

“Who can say,” thought he, “whether I am a 
hero or a monster, large-hearted or a fool? Who is 
right, I or Coralie’s husband? He took his wife 
away without any scruples. A woman gave him 
her love, he took it, without any uneasiness as to 
the sacrifice he exacted, sure of paying her. They 
are happy. Not once has she reproached him for 
having taken her away from her friends and her 
fashions. They are happy ! What matters the rest 
of the world to them? If Jenny could see them at 
this moment would she not envy them? Alas! per- 
haps she would say that I should have done better 
to have brought her here as this soldier did Coralie.” 

The quiet which surrounded him brought about 


172 


HEALED LIPS . 


an overpowering reaction, the fatal hour reserved 
for the complete immolation of himself. It was 
night. Darkness covered everything. In the little 
opening of the bordj the pale evening tints were 
rapidly darkening, and by a frequent optical illu- 
sion the trees and masses of foliage seemed to draw 
near, like Shakespeare’s walking forest. 

No dark cr threatening mystery was concealed 
behind this somber curtain. There came, from the 
depths of the woods, children’s cries and women 
singing accompanied by the rustic guzla ; as it 
reached Patrice’s ears he thought that the sole 
creature in this desert who knew complete solitude, 
desertion, and overwhelming sadness was himself. 
His courage forsook him. 


SEALED LLPS. 


173 


CHAPTER XIX. 

“are you happier?” 

Suddenly a strong hand knocked at his door, and 
Coralie called from outside : 

“Monsieur, Pere Chrysostome is here.” 

“Who is Pere Chrysostome?” asked the young 
man, appearing on the threshold. 

The good woman felt embarrassed, as simple 
people do when asked a question which is difficult 
for them to answer. 

“Why,” stammered she, “it is Pere Chrysostome, 
the priest, as they call him to us poor devils.” 

“A missionary, then?” said Patrice. 

“A missionary!” protested the horrified Coralie. 
“Do you take us for savages, monsieur? At any 
rate, missionary or not, he is here. We see him 
once a month. He has rooms at Telagh, and ap- 
pears any fine day, when we least expect him, leav- 
ing when he has visited the wood -cutters to go to 
some still more distant place. He never loiters 
anywhere.” 

“Well, then,” said O’Farrell, “receive him as 
usual, there need be no change.” 

“ He asked to see you, monsieur. He knows that 
you have arrived, and as you are master now, he 
wishes to greet you, for he is a man as finely edu- 


SEALED LIPS. 


m 

cated as a prince. One can see at a glance that he 
is a gentleman, they say that before he became a 
monk he held a position in society.” 

“Indeed!” replied Patrice. “In that case I will 
go to him. I shall not be sorry to talk an hour be- 
fore going to bed.” 

“ When monsieur wishes to talk,” said Coralie, a 
trifle wounded, “I am always at his service.” 

O’Farrell found the monk in the court, standing 
beside his horse, from which he had just dis- 
mounted, talking familiarly in Arab with a number 
of workmen and servants who had passed the night 
in the inclosure. 

He was a tall, athletic old man, whose attitude 
and slightest movements confirmed at first sight 
Coralie’s suppositions. His superb head and distin- 
guished features, his energetic and easy speech de- 
noted a superior man. A red ribbon, faded by the 
sun and rain, was concealed in the button-hole of 
his black robe behind the copper crucifix which 
hung on his neck. 

Patrice was instantly struck by the piercing and 
also gentle look that darted from his singularly 
beautiful eyes. He could not keep from looking at 
him, and asked himself at once : 

“Where have I seen those eyes?” 

Many times, for several years after, did he ask 
himself that same question, only then he could say 
that he had found out whose resembled them. 

“Reverend Father,” said the young man, “you 


HEALED LIPS. i75 

are welcome to this house, which is not much more 
mine than yours.’’ 

“And you, monsieur,” responded the priest, “are 
welcome to this French soil, where Frenchmen 
like you rarely come. You will find that one can 
live happily here.” 

By this single sentence, which he would not have 
uttered had he known Patrice’s history, and his 
soft voice, Pere Chrysostome made a new friend. 
After having partaken of a short repast the young 
man conducted him to his room, feeling that a 
beneficial intimacy would soon be established be- 
tween them. 

After they had exchanged a few sentences, the 
man expressed his surprise at hearing that the 
young man intended to establish his residence at 
Telagh, and not follow the example of his predeces- 
sors by making short appearances there occasion- 
ally. 

“You will end like the otheis,” said he, smiling. 
“In two months, when you have the company’s 
affairs in good condition and your zeal for hunting 
and traveling is calmed, you will be seized with a 
desire to see France, your family and your friends. 
You will leave here.” 

“ I shall remain here, mon pere. I alone compose 
my family. As to friends, I only had one, and his 
house is closed to me forever.” 

The missionary seemed agitated, and deep lines 
appeared on his forehead. 


176 


SEALED LIPS. 


“I think that I understand you,” sighed he. “I 
have been in Algeria for twelve years, and I have 
learned that a young man of your age and station 
does not come here unless he has a fault to expiate 
or a love to fight against. I can read in your eyes 
that it is no shortcoming that brings you here. 
Thank God for it, and may He soon grant you for- 
getfulness.” 

Patrice suspected at once that Pere Chrysostome 
had a secret in his life. He felt still more attracted 
toward him. The priest, who consoles, encourages, 
and absolves mankind, knows how to find the 
quickest way to the heart when he understands the 
weakness of men. 

“One can see,” said the young colonist, “that this 
dress has not always been yours.” 

“I have lived in the world and fled from it.” 

“Like myself,” said O’Farrell, smiling. 

“Would to God that I had fled from it when as 
young as you!” responded the monk, with touching 
humility. 

Patrice made no reply. For the time being he 
seemed absorbed in himself. The priest was accus- 
tomed to long silences, and seemed also to be lost in 
thought. Suddenly the young man seemed to have 
reached a decision. He asked : 

“Father, will you enlighten me? Forgive me if I 
open my heart to you so quickly, but when you 
came I was suffering the martyrdom of doubt. Per- 
haps you know what that is?” 


SEALED LIPS. 


177 


“ Unfortunately for me it is not the one that I 
know the best. However, when you have told me 
your trouble I will try to find in my compassion and 
faith the words that will give you comfort and 
peace.” 

“ I am at peace now, almost happy compared with 
what I was an hour ago. Listen to me then. Per- 
haps you may have heard of a celebrated per- 
son ” 

“What matters the name? I have sworn to for- 
get others’ names as well as my own. Tell me your 
story, and give no names.” 

“The one of whom I speak has filled a father’s 
place to me. He brought me up like his own son, 
better than he would a son, for he left me free in 
my faith and the beliefs of my childhood, which 
were not his. I owe everything to him. For many 
years I ate his bread, and slept under his roof. We 
were very happy together. But a woman came 
between us. He is married.” 

“ And you were afraid of acting basely toward 
your friend. Many stories commence like yours ; I 
have known of those that ended in blood. My son, 
remain in Algeria.” 

“Certainly, I shall stay here, but you do not know 
all. You do not know that this woman and I loved 
each other, that we do so now. Alas ! it seems to 
me that we always shall love each other. To give 
her to my friend, to force her into his arms, I lied, 
I feigned indifference, I saw her crying at my feet, 


178 


HEALED LIPS. 


and made not the slightest gesture. I can yet feel 
the look that she gave me eight days ago from 
under her bridal vail before linking her life to an- 
other's. And now I ask myself, 'Have I done 
rightly ?’ ” 

“ Why did you make this sacrifice? Did your 
friend exact it?” 

“If he had not married this woman he would 
have killed himself, and cursed me. Mon pere , 
there is a word often used that is not understood; 
it is ‘passion.’ Well, for the first time in my life I 
understand it, in seeing everything crumble under 
the feet of this almost gray-haired man, health, 
love of his profession, ambition, and even friend- 
ship. Ah! what jealousy! What a base opinion 
of me ! What sudden indifference as to my future ! 
What undisguised joy at my departure! If you 
had seen him, broken down, ill, with only one 
thought in his mind. If you had heard him say, 
he, for whom nothing remained on this earth, ‘I 
will kill myself !’ you would have been afraid as I 
was. It is a great stain upon one’s life to have a 
friend’s blood or even his broken heart to think of.” 

Pere Chrysostome left his seat and stood by the 
open window. 

“I impose upon you,” said Patrice, “but I have 
ended. This is what I have done. My friend is 
rich, I have nothing; that was also another motive 
for giving the woman that I love to him. Now 
that it is all over, cruel regrets haunt me; a fright- 


SEALED LIPS. 


179 


ful uncertainty tortures me. Will my friend be 
happy? With one single blow have I ruined three 
lives?” 

“Who can tell?” said the priest, turning from the 
window where he had been leaning with his face 
buried in his hands. “ You are not culpable to have 
devoted yourself for another. Perhaps you have 
prevented a great crime. What sacrifice is too 
great to save a friend’s life? Ah! my child, if you 
had seen what I have, your uncertainty would 
cease very soon. Can the words of an old priest 
and sinner take it away from you forever. Believe 
me ; be calm, and courageous, and grateful for the 
rare strength which has been given you. What 
you did was well done.” 

They parted at these words, as it was getting very 
late. Upon the narrow mattress of his soldier’s 
bed the youngest of these two friends slept as he 
had not done for months before. The other prayed 
for a long time, sighing deeply as he knelt on the 
thick boards. 

“My God!” groaned he, “I was commencing to 
forget! You have punished me for it, for it is your 
will that I should remember it always. Now when 
to do your service I come here I shall find my liv- 
ing punishment. This young man had so much 
strength, and I showed so much weakness!” 

From that day the inhabitants of Telagh noticed 
that the priest’s visits were more frequent. Many 
times during the years that followed Patrice and 


HEALED LIPS. 


180 

his friend talked as they did the first evening with 
an increasing intimacy. Meanwhile they kept 
their secrets. The young man piously concealed 
the name of the one he loved in his heart. The 
priest never let him suspect what grief or fault had 
caused him to withdraw from the world. 

Every time he appeared with his good, pure, 
saintly face he would say to Patrice : 

“Are you happier?” 

And always to the old man’s interrogation Patrice 
was obliged to answer “No,” looking in those eyes 
that had haunted him ever since the first night that 
he saw them. 


SEALED LIPS. 


181 


CHAPTER XX. 

“ SHALL I MAKE HER HATE ME?” 

The third day after his arrival at Pomeyras Gode- 
froid went out from the house alone, about nine 
o’clock in the morning, leaving his wife still sleep- 
ing. During the two preceding days he had fol- 
lowed this marvelous creature, step by step, like a 
dog. He could not take his eyes from her, and was 
astonished to know that a human being could feel 
such happiness as he felt. Every moment brought 
him new delights. When she spoke the sound of 
her voice threw him into ecstasy. When she was 
silent he looked at her trembling with mute adora- 
tion, watching the opportunity to anticipate his 
idol’s slightest desire, and to spare her the slightest 
movement. 

At the table he would forget to eat. 

Sometimes, when they were alone, he would jump 
up to wait upon her, kneeling at her feet like a 
slave, ready to cry with joy when she thanked him 
with her constrained smile. 

All that poets have written of lovers, jealous of 
the air that their mistresses breathe, of the clothes 
that touch them, or the insect that flies near their 
cheek, all these ingenious and charming imagina- 
tions were realities to him. For two days he had 


182 


SEALED LIPS. 


not written a line, touched a box, or taken one step 
without his wife either in the house or in the gar- 
den. To live like this for years ! His imagination 
refused to conceive a more delicious fate, and in his 
proud joy of this first love of his life, this man, who 
was forty-five years old, was surprised to read so 
often this blasphemy of morose philosophers : 

“Complete happiness is never found here below.” 

“It does exist, I have found it. I have it,” 
thought he. “ I am happy !” 

And he added, confident in these first hours of 
happiness : 

“We are happy!” 

But the second evening, at sunset, as he was 
walking with Jenny in the garden, he left her for a 
moment to gather some roses that seemed to please 
her. When he rejoined her she was standing with 
her arms at her side looking very tired, and gazing 
at the distant mountains. He stopped to admire 
her in this pose, for he admired her in any way. 
Alas ! a deep sigh came from the young woman, 
and without realizing it she let fall from her lips 
this heart-broken cry : 

“Oh! my God!” 

Then Godefroid realized that she at least was not 
happy. He looked sadly at the roses that he car- 
ried, regretting that he could not put them back on 
the bushes, for he understood that all the flowers, 
all th6 caresses, and all the treasures in the world, 
offered by him, would be powerless to satisfy this 


SEALED LIPS. 


183 


heart, that was already sighing with weariness. 
His was pierced by the cold pang of despair. 
Fever, he saw clearly, could he obtain anything 
but a resigned tenderness from this one for whom 
his entire being was overflowing with love. What 
use to admit his error? What good to avow that he 
had committed one of those crimes of which one 
dies, and which is the death of others? The freshly 
cut roses that he held in his hand could not return 
to the bush that gave them birth. Jenny Sauval, 
this other flower ruthlessly plucked, could never 
become the happy child that she was when running 
through these same walks which stifled her to-day 
like a prison cell. 

During the long hours of a sleepless night Gode- 
froid had time to reflect on the present, and to fore- 
see the future, to turn over in his mind all the ways 
of gaining her heart, which he seized like an un- 
scrupulous malefactor. 

“I must,” thought he, “have the courage to leave 
her sometimes. When she sees me then she will 
greet me better, perhaps.” 

This morning, then, he went out early and alone 
to carry out his programme, but governments and 
husbands are to be pitied who believe that a pro- 
gramme is necessary. 

In spite of his prudent resolutions Godefroid did 
not have courage to lose sight of the roof under 
which the idol of his life would soon open her 
charming eyes to the light. He wandered about, 


184 


SEALED LIPS. 


ne^r the house, hiding under the trees, and behind 
clumps of bushes, like a lover obliged to use mys- 
terious caution. He spent three hours hoping to 
see her appear and to catch a look that would per- 
mit him to believe that she was looking for him. 
But Jenny did not appear. 

The breakfast hour was drawing near. He lost 
patience, and entered the house, thinking that 
doubtless she was tiring her beautiful hands with 
the various arrangements of a long neglected 
house. But one glance showed him that he was 
mistaken. Jenny was seated in the little parlor 
reading over a long letter that she had just written. 
She arose when she saw him, and came toward him 
with shining eyes and animated countenance, hold- 
ing in her hands the freshly written pages. 

“Now, then,” said she, “I have done my best to 
replace you. Bead my letter, and add a few lines 
at the bottom of the sheet. When does the mail 
leave? It would be too bad if this friend, who is so 
far away, should go more than a week without 
news from us. He would think that we had for- 
gotten him.” 

Then Godefroid remembered that the night be- 
fore, in some way, the conversation had turned 
upon Patrice. 

“About this time he must have reached his 
forests,” the young woman had said. “You ought 
to write to him.” 

He had promised to do so, confessing at the same 


SEALED LIPS. 


185 


time his horror for all letter writing, so much so, 
that Jenny offered to take his place. 

After breakfast was over Godefroid eagerly read 
the lines she had confided to him. The most jealous 
being could not have found the least complaint 
with this familiar chit-chat that had no hidden 
meanings. The young woman told of their arrival, 
avoiding all that could approach unpleasant details. 
She spoke of the emotions that she experienced at 
seeing her birth-place and the gratitude that she 
should always have toward the man who had given 
her that pleasure. She added at the close : 

“He will be recompensed for it, for the air that 
we breathe here is the best in France. He will 
soon entirely regain his health, for he rests. You 
see that I serve as secretary. Write us without 
delay, tell us of your journey and the new country.” 

These lines convinced Godefroid that there had 
never been any love passages between his wife and 
Patrice. Still there was something about this 
friendship that made him cruelly jealous. If he 
had dared he would not have sent the letter. But 
what right had he to retain it, when it had been 
agreed upon that she should write it? What right 
to deprive this young woman buried in a desert, 
after having known a most exciting life, of a pleas- 
ure which she had set her heart on? 

“She already feels lonely,” thought Godefroid. 
“Shall I make her hate me? Alas! since my love 


186 


SEALED LIPS. 


weighs upon her, she shall have at least my esteem 
and confidence.” 

The poor husband, struggling so soon with his 
misery, got out of it in the ordinary way. 

“This letter must go, decidedly,” thought he. 
“As for the others, we will see. Perhaps this zeal 
for writing will pass away.” 

At the bottom of the last page he added a few 
lines, as affectionate as he could, but which be- 
trayed the constraint which conjugal life had put 
between the two friends. While he was writing he 
could hear his wife coming and going in the next 
room, giving orders sometimes in French and some- 
times in the Bearn patois , according as she ad- 
dressed her old servants or the new ones she had 
brought with her from Paris. 

“ She did not open a box or drive a nail until she 
wrote him.” 

That was the thought that troubled Godefroid as 
he directed the letter to O’Farrell. 

“Oh! how I would like to change places with 
him!” sighed he. 

Not once during the days which followed did the 
young woman speak of Patrice or of the letter that 
she had written and the expected response. How- 
ever, when this reply reached Godefroid it goes 
without saying that Jenny spied it among the mail, 
although she had never seen Patrice’s handwriting. 
Her husband read the letter first, then passed it to 
her without saying a word. It was a sort of a jour- 


SEALED LIPS. 


187 


nal written with no enthusiasm nor complaints. 
One could have printed it in any paper without 
changing a word, there was nothing intimate or 
sentimental in the whole letter. 

Fifteen days after Madame Godefroid replied to 
the hermit’s letter — as she jokingly called him. She 
was very careful never to allude to him in a sym- 
pathetic way. He replied with the same delay, 
after this the correspondence was tacitly arranged 
on this footing, but as long as it lasted not one line 
was written that did not pass under Godefroid’s 
eyes. 


188 


SEALED LIPS. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

“YOU WILL NEVER RETURN TO FRANCE.” 

In consequence of Madame Sauval’s arrival, 
which was about the first of May, Godefroid’s in- 
stallation in Bearn took a definite form. He had 
tried, before he left Paris, to procure a month’s con- 
jugal tete-a-tete , and regretfully contented himself 
with the two weeks that he obtained with difficulty 
from his mother-in-law, who said she could not live 
two days, without her daughter. It was, neverthe- 
less, with a feeling of relief that he saw Jenny’s 
mother arrive. Xot once had he seen any appear- 
ance of rebellion or complaint on the young 
woman’s part, but at rare intervals he would hear 
that weary sigh that threw him into despair. The 
presence of a third party in their solitude might 
produce a useful diversion. 

Madame Sauval’s return into her own domain 
had something of the melancholy pomp that 
formerly signalized the return of refugees into 
their own countries and to their own estates. 

If the notary of the place had not been discreet 
he would have told that by virtue of certain deeds, 
followed by a change of stocks, that Pomeyras had 
become Godefroid’s. For the present poor Sauval’s 
widow took care that these little details should not 


SEALED LIPS. 


189 


be known to her neighbors, and forgot them as 
quickly as possible herself. As to the future, she 
knew that one could do many things with God's 
help and a good will. 

Madame Sauval took the reins of power into her 
own hands, and nobody disputed her, Godefroid less 
than anybody else, and in this Bearnais Eden there 
was one person to be seen whose plans and desires 
seemed to be fulfilled. Madame Sauval had no in- 
tention of spending her days in this kingdom, com- 
posed of a lawn, vegetable garden, a poultry yard, 
and a stable. But the truly ambitious can content 
themselves for a time in the pleasure of watching 
events that are working in a quiet way to establish, 
in the end, their fortunes. Like the illustrious, 
vanquished one, who stood on his rock at Elba and 
watched at his feet the Inconstant, with its sails 
slowly filling under a favorable breeze, Martscha, in 
her pleasant exile at Pomeyras, kept her eyes fixed 
on the mysterious shore that she only had in view. 

She had hardly arrived before she had made her 
son-in-law sign a deed of purchase of a small farm 
which joined their estate, and from that time she 
had an outlet for the spirit of commanding that 
was in her. Even the oxen yoked to the heavy 
carts hurried their heavy steps when at a turn in 
the road they saw this terrible mistress watching 
them at work. The continual struggle against 
draughts, rain, storms, idleness, or the tricks of 
the small farmers enamored her, and soon she had 


190 


SEALED LIPS . 


to contend against an enemy more worthy of her, 
that was malice and jealousy. 

While Jenny, who cared less for seeing the sun- 
rise and going about the place in sabots, arranged 
the house and picked her flowers, a league was 
organized against them by the neighbors about 
Pomeyras. 

To these very ignorant and virtuous country 
people, destined to live and die without having gone 
beyond Bordeaux, there was very little difference 
between an opera singer and the lowest of concert 
singers. Both sang on the stage. Meanwhile it 
was reported that some one had read in a Paris 
journal that “La Sauval” had buried herself in 
the country because she had lost her voice. The 
better disposed were ready to believe that there 
had been a civil marriage, while others said that 
the couple had brought to this virtuous soil the 
fatal example of free marriages so common in the 
theatrical world of Paris. 

Very soon, thanks to Madame Sauval, the cure 
of the place soon formed the habit of dining once a 
week at the chateau. This was considered a proof 
that the household was according to the rules of the 
church. From thence Godefroid could have had 
his house full, but he was intractable on that point, 
and his doors were closed upon all those idiots who 
had insulted his wife. 

It was opened one day to receive a deputation 
that came from Biarritz. These ambassadors pre- 


SEALED LIPS. 


191 


sented themselves with many apologies for having 
come unannounced. Perhaps their visit was not 
a surprise to all, for Madame Sauval had not put 
her foot outside the house that day, and her daugh- 
ter, who knew her well, expected something was 
going to happen when she saw her mother’s toilet. 
Godefroid came into the room, and received the 
men in a sulky manner, while they saluted him with 
low bows and called him “dear master.” 

“We are organizing,” said they, “a concert for 
the benefit of our poor people. If we could only 
announce on our programme the grand aria for 
Adossides by Madame Godefroid, people would 
come from Madrid, and the receipts would be im- 
mense.” 

Godefroid thought it over, weighing the pros and 
cons as to his decision. 

“You have not read the Paris journals then, 
gentlemen?” said the queen mother, with majestic 
irony. “ They say that my daughter has lost her 
voice, and that is why she married.” 

At these cunningly calculated vrords Godefroid 
seemed to emerge from his indecision. Jenny came 
in just then, and they almost prostrated themselves 
before her. When she knew of their request she 
looked at her husband with the look of one who only 
wishes to be persuaded. This opportunity to amuse 
herself tempted her, and more yet, the idea of sing- 
ing for the poor as a great lady, after having sung 
for the rich for money, pleased her. The day was 


192 


SEALED LIPS. 


appointed forthwith, and all the details arranged. 
The ambassadors departed overwhelmed with joy, 
and during the days which followed at Pcmeyras 
everybody was busy. Godefroid resumed his music, 
and made his wife practice. Her voice was never 
in better condition. Madame Sauval wrote several 
letters, which she took great care to post herself. 

The concert took place on the appointed day. 
Upon the list of patrons were to be seen the names 
of a dozen aristocratic Europeans. One of the last 
on the list was that of Prince Kemeneff, chamber- 
lain to the Czar. 

Madame Godefroid had as dazzling a triumph as 
a woman could ever dream of. Her voice, talent, 
beauty, refinement, toilet, and wit were lauded to 
the skies, and to be just, she merited this ovation. 
She became at once the favorite of a galaxy of 
ladies, mostly Russians, who had applauded her at 
the opera, but now treated her like one of them. 
Kemeneff was irreproachable in his reserve, and 
gave an example of his respect by introducing her 
to his friends. He had owned for several years one 
of the most elegant villas in Biarritz. 

Although the young woman was too sensible to 
have her head turned by this success, she could not 
be insensible of it. But most of all she felt pleaded 
at being received as one of them by women in the 
very best society of Europe. Invitations were 
showered upon her so fast that she was unable to 
accept all. Instead of passing two days at Biarritz, 


SEALED LIPS. 


193 


as she had intended, she remained there over a 
week. She left overwhelmed with caresses, prom- 
ising, as one promises many things in society, to 
visit St. Petersburg the next year. 

“ When the emperor sees you and the empress 
hears you,” they said to her, “you will never return 
to France.” 

She was too clear sighted not to see that she owed 
this enthusiasm — at least a great part of it — to 
Prince Kemeneff ; when she saw him so assiduous 
at first, she had a defiant feeling, fearing that some 
day he would demand recompense for services ren- 
dered. But Serge Kemeneff was a gentleman in 
deeds as well as thoughts, slighting women only 
when they delighted to be scorned. In early life 
the prince had been fortunate enough to meet a 
very beautiful, worthy woman, who would not lis- 
ten to him. This was a very useful lesson, and 
obliged him to believe in the virtue of women or at 
least in the possibility of it, which is a great deal. 
Since that time the recklessness of his age and race, 
his trips from one end of Europe to the other, the 
different people he had met, the examples before his 
eyes, all these had given him this mixture of frivol- 
ity and philosophy, passionate ardor, and easy re- 
signation which distinguishes certain men. Kem- 
eneff loved Jenny more sincerely than he had ever 
loved before, and if it would not have seriously 
compromised his interests, he would have married 
her if possible. It is difficult for men like us, who 


194 


SEALED LIPS. 


are unaccustomed to traditions of obedience and 
ideas of respect, to realize how heavily the appro- 
bation or blame of the Czar weighed upon these 
Russian gentlemen. 

Kemeneff was in great despair when he learned 
that Jenny was married, but he loyally resigned 
himself to see another obtain what he had never 
asked for. After serving a month at the palace, 
followed by a month of pleasure in Paris, he estab- 
lished himself for the summer at his villa in Biar- 
ritz, and when he learned by a letter from Madame 
Sauval that his old love was living so near him, his 
first movement was to overcome all remembrances 
of his love for her. But when he saw Jenny more 
beautiful and attractive than ever, his old passion 
for her returned with one more incentive, for he 
found an exquisite, elegant society woman distin- 
guished above all others. He had so much chival- 
rous respect for her, so much reserved admiration, 
his devotion took such a delicate adoration, that 
Godefroid, in spite of himself, conceived more 
esteem than jealousy for him. When he left Biar- 
ritz he exacted a promise from the prince to visit 
Pomeyras, a politeness, to tell the truth, almost 
forced upon him, for it was to the prince that Jenny 
owed the greater part of her pleasures as well as 
her success during their short sojourn. 

Sometimes a fear that he kept to himself haunted 
Godefroid. 

“I am lost,” thought he, “ if this applause makes 


HEALED lips. 


195 


mv wife regret her past, and if she returns home 
with a taste for this society which she has just 
entered. That is the way that I should surely lose 
her.” 

He was soon reassured, for Jenny left Biarritz 
without any regrets; she even refused her hus- 
band’s offer to remain a few days longer. 

“If you wish to make me very happy,” said she — 
it was the first request that she had ever made — 
“ let us take a roundabout way home. I would like 
to see my dear mountains again.” 

The next day Madame Sauval went home alone, 
and the couple plunged into the depths of the 
Pyrenees, choosing for their stopping places the vil- 
lages ignored by the crowd. Jenny took great 
pleasure in doing the honors of the grand sights to 
her husband, enjoying them herself with artistic 
enthusiasm. Godefroid noticed that even in the 
midst of the sublime horrors of Maladetta and the 
whirl of fetes at Biarritz that she did not forget 
O’Farrell. She watched for the arrival of the 
African mail with the same interest, and in order 
to reply the usual day she sat up two hours in spite 
of her fatigue from a tiresome excursion, when 
Godefroid urged her to go to bed, saying that for 
once Patrice could miss a letter. 

“Oh, no,” replied the young wife. “He must 
never think, even for twenty-four hours, that you 
have forgotten him.” 

Toward the end of September the two tourists 


196 


SEALED LIPS. 


were obliged to leave the mountains on account of 
the cold. Jenny was painfully surprised to see how 
much her husband suffered from it, for she had 
thought that his health was more permanently re- 
established. He seemed profoundly discouraged by 
this relapse, although it was not serious apparently. 

He wished to stop in Pau for a day. There, for 
the first time since their marriage, he left Jenny 
alone the entire morning. On the return of the 
guilty one she complained in an affectionate way. 

“ Why did you not employ the time to write to 
Algeria?” said he. 

She did not reply, judging from his air that he 
was in one of his sober moods. She did not dare 
ask him where he had been, and by this reserve 
she saved him the trouble of lying. He had prom- 
ised himself that nobody should know how or where 
he passed his morning, for he had been with his 
lawyer, and had made his will. 


HEALED LIPS. 


197 


CHAPTER XXII. 

“oh! HOW I ENVY him!” 

At Pomeyras Godefroid found warmer weather, 
for summer lasts longer on the plains. But he did 
not recover his evenness of temper at the suspense 
that he endured, as his health began to fail again. 
Madame Sauval discerned with her infallible eye 
that he had begun to decline in health, and her 
ordinary care for her daughter’s husband became a 
solicitude that few sons-in-law ever experience. 

At heart what she experienced was poignant 
emotion such as a chess player feels who has made 
a move based upon a false one of his adversary’s. 
Was this artless player going to make the very 
move that she anticipated — that of dying? 

At all events, it was time now to advance her 
knight upon the scene. Without losing a day, as if 
an angel from Heaven had apprised him of their 
return, Kemeneff wrote to announce himself, as he 
had promised. 

“The devil take him!” said Godefroid, who was 
growing more and more morose. “ I have not in- 
vited one of my friends from Paris to come to see 
me, and I am obliged to give hospitality to this Mos- 
covite.” 

“A dinner, a simple dinner,” corrected Madame 


198 


SEALED LIPS. 


Sauval. “At Biarritz he offered you much more 
than that.” 

“ According to that there are twenty-five people 
that I ought to invite to dine with us. If I com- 
mence with one ” 

All discussion was displeasing to Jenny, what- 
ever its causes, so she made a pretext to leave, pre- 
ferring not to be consulted. 

“Now, then, what notion have you taken into 
your head?” asked his mother-in-law when they 
were alone. “Are you jealous? Has my daughter 
given you any reason to be so? If you are is it pru- 
dent for you to show it? In your position a man 
cannot shut the door in the face of a man of posi- 
tion like the Czar’s chamberlain. It is not your 
intention, I fancy, to drop your profession now, at 
least your ambition is not limited to having your 
music applauded in the casino? At St. Petersburg 
the prince might be of great service to you. Then, 
to tell the truth, he amuses Jenny, who, between 
you and me, sighs a little for olden times. To leave 
the theater was all very well, she wished to do so, 
and I am rejoiced that she was able to do it. From 
there to a convent is quite a step ; I fear you are 
tempted sometimes to forget it.” 

Madame Sauval did not always succeed in con- 
vincing her adversaries when she reasoned with 
them, but she got them in such a state of lassitude 
that they were compelled to submit. Godefroid 
yielded, thinking that peace to an honest man was 


SEALED LIPS. 


199 


well worth a dinner even if given to an ardent 
prince. 

“We shall expect you day after to-morrow,’* 
wrote he forthwith to Kemeneff. “I fear that the 
little cottage where we live”— this was a revenge 
on his mother-in-law— “ will seem a trifle small be- 
side your villa. But you will receive the very best 
that we can offer. A carriage will meet you at the 
station.” 

The next day but one the carriage returned empty 
from the station, but almost immediately a phaeton 
drawn by two trotters dashed up the oak drive. 

“What!” exclaimed Godefroid, “did you drive all 
this distance?” 

“Oh!” said Kemeneff, with a slightly affected in- 
difference, “ten leagues is nothing for us.” 

Almost immediately two men appeared, and led 
the horses away to the yard between the house and 
stable. 

“Three hours’ work!” said one of them to his 
companion. 

“Yes,” said the other, looking at the horses cov- 
ered with foam with a discouraged air. “Since the 
day these horses were put in our stables it is the 
first time that he has not been afraid that they 
would moisten their skin. It must be that this little 
lady has caught him fast.” 

Upon reaching this conclusion they commenced 
groomingthe horses, while old Pierre, with his hands 
in his vest pockets and cap over his eyes, watched 


200 


SEALED LIPS. 


the operation with the same frightened look that he 
would have followed the audacious feats of a tamer, 
in a cage of wild beasts. They had not finished 
their task before Godefroid and his party had left 
the table and gone into the garden. Kemeneff 
would not have exerted himself more if he had 
been promenading in the gardens of Tsarskoe- 
Selo in company with an archduchess instead of in 
Pomeyras’ narrow walks with Madame Godefroid. 

The master of the house watched his wife, not 
with jealous suspicion, he had not yet reached that 
degree of misery, but because he was incapable, 
when she was near, of turning his eyes in any other 
direction. He was delightfully surprised to see her 
as simple and unembarrassed as if she had been 
accustomed from her infancy to do nothing but 
receive the Czar’s chamberlains. She was uneasy 
and almost impatient, turning her head toward the 
oak walk with as much anxiety as a scholar watches 
a clock when waiting for recess. Suddenly the 
postman’s blue blouse and leather cap appeared. 
Adieu to the prince and his charming conversation. 
His beautiful companion flew away like a bird, and 
returned to her husband carrying a letter post- 
marked Algeria. It was the day for the foreign 
mail. 

“If your excellency will permit us?” said she, 
smiling. “It is a letter from one of our friends, 
who lives alone across the sea. You know Patrice 
O’Farrell, I think?” 


SEALED LIPS. 


201 


“ I would like to be in his place this moment,” 
said the prince, with a courtly salute, “since you 
think of him. ” 

He very politely engaged Madame Sauval in con- 
versation, who blushed with rage as Jenny, lean- 
ing on her husband’s arm, listened, to the exile’s 
letter. 

When the last line was finished she returned to 
the prince, and devoted herself to him with her per- 
fect grace until the equipage, more dazzling than 
ever, drove up to the steps with its porch covered 
with clematis. 

Meanwhile autumn was drawing to a close. In a 
climate less mild they would have already felt the 
approach of winter. Many times the prince’s trot- 
ters went over the road that they knew every turn 
of so well now. Kemeneff, unless he had been very 
conceited, and that was not one of his faults, could 
not flatter himself that Jenny ever showed the 
slightest agitation in his presence, but she made no 
attempt to conceal her friendship for him. 

As to Godefroid, in spite of the urgent request of 
Jenny and her mother — his gloomy spirits made 
them uneasy — he applied himself constantly to 
work. Every day his health showed more and 
more unfavorable symptoms, but he seemed'to dis- 
regard them. They sent several times for one of 
the best physicians in Pau to come to see him. He 
pretended to say before Godefroid that they were 
unnecessarily alarmed, but in his private confer- 


202 


SEALED LIPS. 


ences with Madame Sauval he expressed himself 
differently, and did not hesitate to say that his 
heart trouble had made great progress. At this 
time the invalid was very loath to leave his room 
or the reclining chair in Jenny’s little parlor. His 
temper was more aggravated and his jealousy be- 
came of a violence all the more fatal as he con- 
cealed it most carefully. 

Without letting it be seen, each visit that Keme- 
neff paid them caused him extreme suffering. The 
prince was treated so familiarly in the house that 
he never thought of paying any more regard to the 
frequency of his visits than if he had lived in a 
neighboring hamlet. The sick man exhausted him- 
self, unknown to all, in watching every word and 
gesture of his guest. More than once, when Serge 
was talking with his wife, seated upon one of the 
rustic seats before the house, Godefroid would con- 
ceal himself behind a curtain, and while they 
believed him to be quietly reading he was restlessly 
watching them. 

The letters that Jenny received from Algeria and 
those that she continued to write in her husband's 
name were to the very last simply harmless mani- 
festations. The unhappy man would shut himself 
up in his room to read and re-read them and scru- 
tinize every line, trying to discover some hidden 
meaning. He even studied it with a magnifying 
glass to see if there was not some cabalistic sign, 
and finding none he was still more unhappy yet. 


SEALED LIFS. 


203 


“ Who knows,” thought he, “if there have not 
been other letters exchanged between them?” 

But he got nothing for his miserable suspicion. 
If Jenny had been a prisoner she would have had 
about as much of an opportunity for clandestine 
correspondence as now. She net only never left 
Pomeyras, but one could have counted the moments 
that she was out of her husband's sight. Mean- 
while her intimacy with Serge Kemeneff seemed to 
visibly increase. The prince seemed to have for- 
gotten love for friendship there was such a unique 
charm in the innocent smile of this fascinating 
creature, simple and faithful in her loyalty; she 
neither sought nor avoided opportunities for a tete- 
a-tete , one could see that his visits, her only dis- 
traction, were anticipated by her with much pleas- 
ure. Standing upon the steps, she would watch 
him drive away, and never failed to say, with a 
gracious movement of the head : 

“I hope we shall see you again very soon.” 

During all this time Godefroid was dying of love 
and jealousy. He had moments of enthusiasm and 
despair, supplicating adoration and hate. Some- 
times he would take his wife in his arms with sav- 
age ardor, saying, in a suppressed voice : 

“You are mine! Your beauty belongs to me ! I 
possess those eyes that I gazed at from a distance 
for so many years like inaccessible stars. How can 
they say that I do not believe in Heaven? You are 
my heaven, your beauty and the intoxication that; 


204 


SEALED LIPS. 


it gives me, the proud thought that no other being 
like you lives upon this earth, and that this treas- 
ure is mine. Yes, I believe in eternity. Eternity is 
one minute of my life when I feel your heart 
against mine, and I bury my lips in your hair. Ah I 
you have given me a hundred very happy cen- 
turies !” 

Then seeing her immovable and speechless, as if 
frightened by these wild transports : 

“You do not love me!” he would exclaim. “I 
know it ! I am not your lover ; I am your master ! 
Now, then, superb slave, I steal these kisses as I 
stole you. What does it matter? it is one more lux- 
ury. What supreme delight it would be to die now 
if you would die with me.” 

Soon he would pay for these disordered outbreaks 
by overwhelming returns of distressing grief. 

“Alas ! What am I to you ?” he would sigh. 
“What could you find in me worthy of your sov- 
ereign beauty? Even what I once had I have no 
longer. Youth, art, enthusiasm, all is merged in 
my love! If you wished it the world would be at 
your feet as I am. Every man that you look at 
loses his reason. Kemeneff stammers like a school- 
boy when you glance at him. And that other ; the 
one whose name you have never told me, that you 
love yet, I presume — where is he? Perhaps he still 
lives separated from you? Dead or living, oh, how 
I envy him!” 

One day, after looking at her for a long time with 


SEALED LIPS. 


205 


the frightful stare of one whose mind wanders, he 
said, slowly, as he clenched his hands, “How I 
envy those kings in the east; the same funeral pile 
consumes them and the wives that they have 
loved.” 

A short time after the physician came from Pau 
to see him. As he was going to his carriage escorted 
by the mother-in-law : 

“Madam,” said he, in a very low tone, “your son- 
in-law adores his wife. It is easy to see and to 
understand it, but he loves her too much. He must 
be calmer. Try to arrange it ; you understand me, 
do you not?” 

“Very well, doctor, I will do the best that I can.” 

But she forgot this time to follow out the doctor’s 
prescription. With her cold, tranquil, penetrating 
eye, she watched the progress of this crisis as she 
watched her oxen as they paced the furrows in her 
meadow. Sometimes a heavy fear oppressed her. 
Godefroid, from day to day, showed more confi- 
dence in his “guardian angel,” as he called her. 
The angelic widow would have given the best 
feather out of her wings for an answer to the ques- 
tion that she dared not ask, for the sick man felt 
that she was on the point of asking it, and eluded 
it with an eagerness that augured badly. This re- 
ply was in a notary’s safe at Pau, from whence it 
would emerge in good time, but Martscha was 
ignorant of this fact. 

“At any rate,” said she to console herself, “Kem- 


200 


SEALED LIPS. 


eneff is rich. What matters it who my son-in-law 
leaves his money to?” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

“GIVE me that letter.” 

Jealous as he was, Godefroid felt the deepest re- 
spect for his wife, and scorned himself for having 
stooped so low as to watch her. He tried to calm 
his scruples in this manner : 

“ I submit her to an unworthy proof, but in doing 
so,” thought he, “I force myself to recognize her 
loyalty, which is without reproach.” 

One day his heart was torn by such a terrible dis- 
covery that he asked himself if he was going to fall 
dead to the floor before making a sound. 

Kemeneff was preparing to return to his villa ; 
before mounting to the seat he took leave of Jenny, 
while her mother was petting the thin and tired 
horses, exhausted by the long trips that they had 
been making for weeks. Suddenly, after gazing 
around her, Jenny took a letter from her pocket 
and slipped it into the prince's hands, he hid it as 
quickly as if this maneuver was a familiar one to 
them. Before the husband, who was secreted on 
the upper floor, could recover from his surprise, the 


SEALED LIPS. 


207 


horses and their master had disappeared down the 
road. 

If Godefroid had had the strength he would have 
bounded upon his perfidious wife, and when the 
crime had been admitted would have avenged him- 
self God only knows by what violence. But a faint 
turn nailed him to the spot at first. When he was 
able to reflect he comprehended that it was neces- 
sary to dissimulate in order to surprise two guilty 
ones instead of one. 

For a week this single idea, this one desire, gave 
him such incredible energy that at this time his 
health seemed to improve. His strength returned, 
although he took very little nourishment, and sleep 
was a thing unknown. 

He even had the will power to address his wife 
with an apparent deceitful calm, but the very sight 
of this adorable creature made him suffer a thou- 
sand deaths. For one whole week he watched her 
actions night and day as one watches the move- 
ments of a criminal condemned to death. But he 
saw nothing suspicious. He was beginning to fear 
that he should be unable to conduct to the end his 
work of revenge when one day a note was received 
announcing a visit from the prince the next day. 

At the usual hour for Kemeneff’s appearance 
Jenny seemed nervous, and taking her book went 
into the garden. She soon feigned to be deeply in- 
terested in her reading, and directed her steps 
toward the oak walk now despoiled of its leaves. 


208 


SEALED LIPS. 


Godefroid, sniffing the air as a wild beast scents its 
prey, glided behind a laurel hedge whose green 
foliage made an impenetrable screen. As he glided 
from bush to bush he could see his wife’s elegant, 
supple figure walking slowly with her hands crossed 
over the book, which was now closed, her head 
bent, with all the signs of bitter distress. He 
thought of the promenade that they had taken to- 
gether in this same place the evening of their 
arrival at Pomeyras. 

“ What are these old trees that she loves so much 
going to see?” thought he, shivering in spite of him- 
self, as he thought of the drama so near. 

A rumbling of wheels was heard in the distance. 
Jenny turned her head to assure herself that she 
was alone. Upon a sign from her hand the horses 
covered with foam stopped. The prince threw the 
reins to the servant, and descended from the 
carriage. 

“To the stables, and unharness them!” ordered 
- he. 

Then, as the carriage disappeared, Kemeneff 
bowed respectfully before the young woman. 

“Here is the reply to your letter,” said he, hand- 
ing her a letter that she at once put in her pocket. 

“I can hardly wait to read it, but I dare not. I 
always fear that he may appear. He watches me 
constantly, and this suspicion is atrocious.” 

She carried her handkerchief to her eyes. 

“I pity you with all my heart,” said the prince. 


SEALED LIPS. 


209 


At the least familiar gesture this man would have 
been dead, for five steps from him Godefroid was 
caressing the trigger of his revolver, but Kemeneff 
and Jenny took the road to the house without even 
having touched hands. 

On the way the prince met Madame Sauval, and 
seemed to allow himself to be taken possession of 
by her, while Jenny disappeared down a narrow 
walk protected from sight by a wall of cypress. As 
she drew the letter from her pocket a man rose up 
before her, so changed that she gave a cry, believ- 
ing that she was to be attacked by a criminal. 

“Give me that letter,” commanded her husband 
in a suppressed tone. 

She trembled and drew back, holding the envelope 
behind her out of his reach. Godefroid suspected 
that she would take to flight if he took one step 
more, and he felt unequal to it. What pursuit were 
his limbs capable of? 

To frighten Jenny, only to frighten her, for he 
pitied her when he saw the look of mortal agony on 
fthat dear face, Godefroid showed her the pistol that 
he held. 

“Do not undertake to run away,” said he. “ You 
see that I am determined to have that letter.” 

“What I see is this,” replied the young woman— 
“ that I pass in your eyes for the vilest of women. 
That is what I get for doing as I did. My God ! 
how unhappy I am!” 

She commenced to cry, but Godefroid took no 


210 


SEALED LIPS. 


notice of her tears. He continued in the same 
harsh, inflexible voice : 

“ I am unhappier than you are, and I do not merit 
it. Give me that letter.” 

“Antoine,” said she, placing her hand on her hus- 
band’s arm, “I beg of you do not get excited. Poor 
friend, dear in spite of all. Is it possible that you 
no longer esteem the wife that you loved?” 

“All women are deceitful; all men betray them. 
Life is one long falsehood. My experience is like 
others’ : but I wish to know my disgrace, to relish it, 
to learn just how far it goes, to know how long I 
have wallowed in it. If this proof that I have 
should escape me do you think that that miserable 
fop of a Kemeneff would be spared? Ah! Ah! I 
have the man that you love now, do you see! Yes, 
I will kill him ! Do you hear?” 

“Yes, alas! yes, I hear you,” groaned she. “My 
God! What shall I do? You have confidence in 
m}^ mother. Go to her. Before you she shall open 
and read the contents of this letter. If she swears 
to you that these lines are only a response written 
by the most loyal of hands in answer to a most hon- 
est demand- — ” 

“I have no confidence in anybody,” interrupted 
Godef roid. “ The letter ! ” 

“ Well, here it is,” said his wife. “I have done 
the best in my power; God is my witness.” 

At first as he glanced at the address Godefroid 


SEALED LIPS. 


211 


was stupefied to see a name that he little expected 
to find there. It was addressed like this: 

To Prince Kemeneff, 

At his villa, 

Biarritz. 

(To be handed to Madame Godefroid.) 

Suddenly, recognizing the handwriting, the irri- 
tated husband gave a cry of horror. 

“O’Farrell !” cried he. “It is he! It is he who is 
making a fool of me ! I understand ! The prince 
is only a go between. But Patrice! Patrice! Oh! 
this will be the greatest grief in my life!” 

Jenny became very pale, her features changed 
their expression. With a flash of indignation and 
superb assurance she said to Godefroid. 

“Yes, it is Patrice. But before insulting anybody 
further, read what he has written.” 

“I am overcome with grief,” read Godefroid, 
aloud. “Is it possible? Is this doctor not mis- 
taken? So much progress in eight months by this 
terrible disease! Has he not been happy? They 
said that happiness would make him live. Thank 
you for letting me know ; I will start at once. Oh, 
that I never had left him ! this friend that I have 
loved so tenderly, more than he ever knew, for I 
would have given my life for him ! I gave him all 
that I could! And you, too, have generously paid 
your debt. God will reward you for it! I shall 
start on my journey, and must hasten to prepare 
for my absence. I must also find some pretext for 


212 


SEALED LIPS. 


my arrival, for he must not have any suspicion. I 
wish him to keep up the illusion to the end. Watch 
on your part, and let us do our duty until the last 
hour. I shall see you soon. My heart is overflow- 
ing with sorrow that no human being can compre- 
hend. 

“ Patrice.” 

Godefroid folded up the letter without saying 
anything, and put it in its envelope with the same 
precaution that he would have replaced a poisoned 
dirk in its sheath. His hands did not tremble. His 
face, calmed by that solemn voice which called him 
from the tomb, had already a tranquil but majestic 
solemnity imprinted upon it. A landscape scorched 
by a burning sun changes its aspect in a second 
like this, when a cloud gathers in the heavens, an- 
nouncing a storm. 

“Ah ! It is then the end !” said he, without look- 
ing at Jenny. “I knew very well that it would be 
short, but I thought that perhaps it would be a little 
longer. Poor Patrice ! he never suspected when he 
wrote these lines that he was warning.” 

“God is my witness,” sobbed the young woman, 
“that it is not my fault that you read them.” 

He took her in his arms, and pressed her to his 
heart. 

“Forgive me; can you forgive me?” he asked. 
“Forgive me all. I have loved you too much, and 
it is that which is killing me. Ah! this love, if 
only you do not regret it more than I! A little 


SEALED LIPS. 


213 


patience. It was better that I should be warned. 
Henceforth I shall not be suspicious or unjust. 
Now, I believe that there are faithful friends and 
generous hearts, and it is so good to believe it! 
Now, my dear Patrice, you will not have to seek a 
pretext for coming to Pomeyras!” 

Just then a bell announced dinner. Jenny had 
her head on her husband’s shoulder, trying to con- 
ceal her tears. He kissed her forehead, saying: 

“ How grateful I am to you for pardoning me ! 
The bell has called us ; we must not forget that we 
have a guest to-day. Ah ! that bell ! It seems as if 
I heard it for the first time only yesterday in the 
oak walk. Do you remember? It rang for me 
then, the happiest hour of my life. Now it is a fare- 
well that it rings. Between these two tinklings the 
happiest hours of my life have passed. Let us go ! 
no more weakness ! Give me your arm, my child, 
and we will appear like two people who have been 
reconciled after a scene. Be tranquil ; I shall do 
nothing more hereafter.” 

She walked softly, guided like a blind person by 
her husband, for she kept her hands over her eyes 
to prevent the tears from gushing forth. 

“Walk a little faster,” said he, softly. “The din- 
ner must not get cold. Kemeneff must be hungry.” 

He pretended to speak in an elated tone, but as 
they approached the house, he asked : 

“ Promise me one thing, the same as if you were 
promising a — some one who was very near his end. 


214 


SEALED LIPS. 


Never repeat to a soul, never ! the miserable folly 
that you saw me commit a short time ago.” 

“Ah!” responded she, “do you believe that it is 
necessary for me to make such a promise?” 

They entered the parlor where the prince was 
counting the moments, for he had reason to be un- 
easy at this long absence. But when he saw Gode- 
froid’s smiling face and eyes overflowing with ten- 
derness for his wife, he forgot all his fears. That 
day he left more convinced than ever as- to his 
host’s blindness as to the number of days he had to 
live. 

When the phaeton had disappeared Godefroid 
asked Jenny for her arm, and together they made a 
tour of the garden under the warm rays of a winter 
sun. At first they walked in silence. The young 
wife would have liked to have said something, but 
she felt that he was making a farewell visit, and 
all ordinary subjects of conversation would seem in 
his eyes cruel, out of place, or ridiculous. Gode- 
froid was the one who talked, but one would have 
said that he was talking to himself rather than to 
his companion. He seemed to wish to live over his 
past life by recalling remembrances of it. Jenny, 
for the first time, knew this man’s history, ordi- 
narily he talked so little. 

She could see the poor schoolmaster’s child seated 
at the organ in the little village church, then the 
young student, studying music with passionate 
fervor, gaining his first success, winning his first 


S HALED LIPS. 


215 


applause. Then the young master artlessly proud 
to hear when he passed a crowd : 

“That is Godefroid!” and soon, to his complete 
surprise, he was no longer poor. Then, after that 
he met Jenny Sauval, and it was nothing but her. 

“Until then my life was only a tiresome journey,” 
said fye. “After that it became a temple, where I 
found the divinity dreamed of, and which 1 never 
left.” 

They reached the gate leading to Madame Sau- 
val’s small farm, and which marked the limit of 
the inclosure. Godefroid stopped and gazed at the 
Pyrenees, whose white tops obstructed the horizon. 

“How beautiful they are,” sighed he, as he looked 
at them. “ How many years will you be there, you 
indestructible giants ! How many insects like me 
will you see swarm in this place and then disap- 
pear? I do not envy you your eternal duration. 
One of those thrills that I feel when your hand 
touches mine, my dear, consoles me for not living 
always. How beautiful you are ! How I have 
loved you ! How I love you now ! Do you hear 
me, you mountains? I love her, and I am happy!” 

He fell into silence for a moment, and then kiss- 
ing his wife’s hand, he said : 

“Yes, I am happy. And if our friend should 
arrive later than he expects, of all my words that is 
what you must tell him. Now let us return. I 
have just time to write a letter that must go out to- 
night.” 


216 


SEALED LIPS. 


He went up to his room, and could only write a few 
lines in such an altered handwriting that these 
lines would tell the story that he must die. 

“Poor friend, you can come without seeking any 
pretext. Come quickly, I beg of you. I wish to 
talk with you before. Godefroid.” 

Then he fell back in his chair unconscious. 


SEALED LIFE. 


217 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

“has he arrived?” 

The shock is severe for the strongest of men, if 
he learns suddenly that he must die, and Godefroid 
had no idea that he was so near his end. In spite 
of his rare courage the shock prostrated him. 

They were able to revive him, and when the 
physician visited him in the evening he requested to 
be left with him alone. 

“How many days yet? Several?” asked he. 

“Do not be alarmed,” replied the physician. “It 
was a simple faint.” 

“ I am not alarmed, but I wish to know. Do not 
treat me like a child. Will it be fifteen days?” 

The doctor seemed to have suddenly become deaf. 

“Eight, then?” 

“Something like that.” 

“Shall I suffer much?” 

“ I can assure you, no. As little as possible. For 
an instant probably.” 

“Ah! so much the better! That is too much, for 
our loved ones to have to pass long hours about the 
repulsive disfigured object that death makes of us. 
Doctor, will you do me a great and a last service? 
Will you make my wife believe that her presence 
causes me dangerous emotion. That she must come 


218 


SEALED LIPS. 


only when I send for her. Poor little one ! She 
must not see all the villainous things that precede 
the most villainous of all.” 

“It shall be as you wish,” said the doctor, as he 
withdrew. 

From thence it was established as a measure of 
prudence that Jenny should go into the sick room 
at certain hours only, and that she should not stay 
there over a certain time. Godefroid spent one 
hour preparing for the first visit, with all the 
coquetry of a lover. Before the young woman’s 
appearance everything pertaining to medicines 
were put out of sight, the vials and glasses were 
carried into an adjoining room, and the room care- 
fully ventilated. Then he was shaved by his valet, 
perfumed, brushed, and clothed in spotless linen. 
Then Godefroid would say : 

“Ask madam if she will be so good as to come to 
see me.” 

Sometimes when she was there he would feel the 
approach of one of his terrible attacks which oc- 
curred more frequently now. Forcing himself to 
smile he would quietly beg her to retire, pretending 
that he wished to sleep, and the poor woman would 
obey, feigning belief in what he said, for she knew 
from the doctor that the slightest contradiction 
would render the crisis fatal. The moments that 
Godefroid passed, holding Jenny’s little hand 
pressed in his own, were moments of supreme hap- 
piness to him, although he never said the word love. 


SEALED LIPS. 


219 


He seemed to go over his past life, returning to the 
time when his love for her was concealed in him- 
self like a rash hope. And a thing no less strange ! 
he renewed his passion for music, and spoke of his 
works, of great masters, of the opera, the successes 
and failures that were produced there. One day he 
even wished to hear the grand aria from Adossides 
which had been their common triumph. She was 
obliged to accompany herself, and in the midst of 
the piece she burst into tears, from that time Gode- 
froid never mentioned music. 

During this time the invalid was greatly pleased 
by a call from Kemeneff, for his conscience re- 
proached him for not having appreciated the loyalty 
of this friend who had always been a warm ad- 
mirer of his works. This time, like a well-bred 
gentleman, he did not unharness his horses, but 
inquired at the door for the invalid. But Madame 
Sauval would not listen to that, and forced him to 
seat himself in the little parlor, and then there was 
a conversation, such as Moliere delighted in, be- 
tween them. 

“Poor man !” said Kemeneff, in a low voice. “Do 
you think that his disease is progressing rapidly?” 

“My poor daughter!” groaned the mother-in-law. 
“ A widow before the end of the first year of her 
marriage!” 

“Do they think the end is near?” 

“ It is a matter of days only. The unhappy child 
may be a widow to-morrow.” 


220 


SEALED LIPS. 


“It is a singular destiny for this talented man. 
At one time I belived that he had a great future be- 
fore him.” 

“ Alone in the world, and so young ! As for my- 
self, it does not matter. I am old and shall die one 
of these days. I have suffered so much!” 

“He had a good heart. He adored his wife.” 

“Ah! yes, doubtless he adored her. But these 
artists look so little on the practical side of life ! And 
my daughter is so disinterested almost — imprudently 
so. God knows if he will leave her anything but a 
stainless name.” 

Kemeneff understood by this that the affair of 
the will was not going to please her. Supposing 
that Madame Sauval would not commit the “ im- 
prudence” of disturbing her daughter at the in- 
valid's bed-side on a subject as serious as that, he 
arose and took his leave. 

“I beg of you,” said he, “give my most sincere 
sympathy to your son-in-law. As to Madame Gode- 
froid, please present my best respects. I never 
cease to think of her.” 

“ My daughter has always considered you her best 
friend.” 

“After Patrice O’Farrell,” thought the prince. 

He kept to himself the secret of the correspon- 
dence of which he had been cognizant. He de- 
parted after ten minutes’ audience, and refreshed 
himself and his horses at a neighboring inn. 

Six days had passed since Godefroid wrote 


SEALED LIPS. 


221 


Patrice. He counted the hours, haunted with a fear 
that never left him, but which he mentioned to 
nobody: 

“ If he should get here too late!” 

Jenny had never mentioned it, but she had con- 
fided to the telegraph the lines written by her hus- 
band, -for she, too, feared that the post was too 
slow. With electricity one gained four days. 

One evening toward the end of January he heard 
the noise of wheels before the house. Godefroid by 
earnest entreaties had persuaded his wife to go out 
to drive for an hour to take the air. His ears recog- 
nized the rumbling of a carriage that was to be let 
at the station in desperate cases. He sat up in his 
chair with animated face and eyes sparkling with 
joy. 

“It is O’Farrell!” said he to Madame Sauval, who 
was sitting by him. “ I know that it is he. How 
quickly he came ! You must leave us alone.” 

Almost immediately the young man entered. 

“Do not embrace me too hard,” said the invalid. 
“You will crush me. Sit down there; give me your 
hand, and let me keep it. Ah! the good, brave 
hand ! Do you know that I would like to hold it 
like this when the moment comes for me to take 
the great leap into the unknown. What happiness 
to see you! But how did you get here so soon?” 

“I received your dispatch.” 

“My dispatch? Ah! yes, I understand. She has 
thought of everything. Well, here you are; lean 


222 


SEALED LIPS. 


now talk seriously with some one. You can im- 
agine how hard it is to talk of the rain and the 
beautiful weather when one is as I am. But I must 
spare the nerves of these two poor women for whom 
I am preparing an entertainment, as you know. I 
take care of them the best I can. Jenny is out 
driving. Did you not meet her? 

“Talk of yourself. How do you feel? I did not 
expect to find you looking so well.” 

“ I should advise you not to rely upon that too 
much. My body is always pretty well, but it does 
not cure my heart ; it simply incloses it. I recall to 
myself those fairy dancers who stand before the 
trap-door, their costumes held only by the wires 
that they pull to shift the scene. Only this time 
costume and the person will go into the trap at 
once.” 

“There is one thing that will not go intd the trap, 
my friend ; that is your soul. But perhaps you may 
be cured yet. Sometimes with your disease people 
live to a good old age.” 

“ That remains to be seen. While waiting let us 
improve every hour and minute, for between us old 
age is not what I fear the most. Do you remember? 
I asked for a year, one year only ! It lacks three 
months of that time. Still if it only lacked that!” 

“Have you not been happy?” 

“I have been on the point of being so once or 
twice. But this happiness has cost others too 
dearly, you first, and then her. Oh, Patrice ! how 


SEALED LILS. 


223 


I would like to know ! How much easier I should 
die if I could have two questions answered. Do you 
love her? Are you the one that she loves?” 

“Always the same ideas!” sighed the young man 
as he arose, incapable of hearing more. 

“They are not the same ideas. I see myself 
clearly now, and I assure you that it does not make 
me proud of myself. Ah ! if you only would tell me 
all! What do you fear? There, where I am going 
there are no reproaches or quarrels. Come! sit 
down beside me again. Let me take your hand, 
this hand that I have seen when so small and weak. 
How strong it is now. How regularly, how calmly, 
and how strong your pulse beats ! What a differ- 
ence to my poor used up machine!” 

Godefroid was silent, holding in his own his 
friend’s robust, healthy hand. He thought with 
the instinctive envy of a dying man that these 
bounding arteries that he felt would beat many mil- 
lions of times after his should have stopped forever. 

Suddenly it seemed as if a storm was raging 
under his fingers. The pulse became quickly agi- 
tated. Almost at the same moment a carriage that 
Patrice had heard first stopped before the door ; it 
brought back Jenny. Quick steps could be heard 
coming up the stairs; the tempest redoubled. Out- 
side the door a voice asked, with a new vibration 
in it: 

“Has he arrived?” 

The door turned softly on its hinges. The one 


224 


SEALED LIPS. 


who opened it remembered that she was entering 
her husband’s chamber, and that he was condemned 
to die soon. As soon as she entered the sick man 
could not feel Patrice’s pulse at all. The young 
man’s blood stopped in his veins; his secret was 
not his own. 

“Good-day, Patrice!” 

“Good-day, madam” x 

That was all. Their eyes met without the slight- 
est agitation under Godefroid’s look. Their hands 
were stretched out without hesitation toward each 
other. Two friends whose heads had been whitened 
by age would not have been more calm at meeting 
after a short separation. There was not a tremor 
of Patrice’s features or voice, for he had come for- 
tified against all emotions of life or death, prepared 
for all surprises. 

But he had, without knowing it, betrayed his 
secret. Godefroid had no more questions to ask. 
The sacrifice that he had accepted without seeing 
it, when passion blinded him — he understood now 
all those generous falsehoods, for the clearness of 
sight that precedes eternal night had been given 
him. He was no longer egotistical, suspicious, or 
jealous. He was simply a man full of generous in- 
stincts, who had become penitent and good as he 
approached his last moment. Once more before he 
left this world, he wished to give himself the pleas- 
ure of making others happy. But at first he must 
reflect. 


SEALED LIPS. 


225 


After asking the traveler a few questions as to 
his journey, and of his life and work in Algeria, 
Godefroid said he was tired, and wished to be left 
alone. 

“Go and look at our garden,” said he to Patrice. 
“Do the honors, my dear, and above all show him 
our Pyrenees. Can one see them plainly to-day?” 

O’Farrell listened to these words with such evi- 
dent stupefaction that the sick man smiled. For 
the first time since his arrival at Pomeyras he real- 
ized how far death had advanced in its work. 
Godefroid freed from that jealousy, that was once 
stronger than friendship or confidence ! Godefroid 
arranging a tete-a-tete between him and Jenny! 

“Alas!” thought he. “What more certain sign 
that death was near!” 

One could tell by seeing these two promenade in 
the garden with lowered heads and hardly speak- 
ing, that they had little heart for the walk. After 
a long silence the young woman spoke, and her 
words showed what filled her thoughts : 

“ If you could know how I have watched over him 
and cared for him, how good and devoted I have 
tried to be, from the first day, even the first minute ! 
Why were you not here? You would have seen 
that I did my very best to keep my promise to you. 
And after all that to be where we are now so soon.” 

Patrice trembled, thinking that the torture of 
“being here” would have been more than he could 
have endured. Sooner, a thousand times sooner his 


226 


SEALED LIPS. 


solitary exile in Algeria. He was moved by the 
tears that he saw in her eyes, and replied : 

“Be at peace. I know that no other hand but 
yours could have prolonged his life so long.” 

“ Alas” said she, sighing, “ would to God that I 
could exchange places with him ; I would willingly 
do so.” 

The young man walked with bowed head, he 
could think of nothing to say. What could he reply 
that would not be an outrage to this dying friend 
or an irony toward the one whom he had con- 
demned to live without happiness? They continued 
their sad promenade, lost in thought, or rather 
dominated over by the thought of that dark hour, 
that go where they would was not far distant from 
them. They felt that everything had gone against 
them, that all their sacrifices had been in vain for 
themselves as well as Godefroid. But the future 
was still more desolate for Patrice, a vow that he 
had not forgotten prevented him even from the 
sacrilegious hope that the most noble hearts are 
haunted with sometimes at the sight of an open 
grave. So as not to succumb under the weight of 
his hopeless grief, he repeated to himself Pere 
Chrysostome’s words which had given him so much 
comfort that first night at Telagh : 

“What you did was well done.” 

But these words that he breathed to himself were 
only a revolting, ironical echo. The emptiness of 


SEALED LIPS. 


227 


his disappointed life seemed every moment more 
discouraging and hopeless. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

“MY POOR PATRICE!” 

The next day, in the morning, before the hour 
when he usually sent for Jenny, Godefroid man- 
aged it so as to see Patrice alone. 

“ I feel a little better this morning; I slept some,” 
said he. “You gave me a good remedy, joy at see- 
ing you again. When I think that but for this visit 

I should But thank Heaven! I shall not leave 

this world with the indelible trace of most frightful 
egotism on me. Is it possible that I have permit- 
ted, wished, and done all of these cruel acts ! Ah ! 
my friend ! What is there more formidable in this 
life than love? It not only leads us to commit 
crimes, but it makes us consider these crimes as the 
most natural thing in this world, as a superior 
right.” 

“Why do you talk of crime?” said O’Farrell. 
“What man can flatter himself that he is just if it 
is not you, my brother and my friend.” 

“Your friend! Do you think that I have acted 
toward you like a friend? You are not exacting. 


228 


SEALED LIPS. 


But patience ! Do not judge me hastily before the 
hour shall come which judges all the other hours of 
my life.” 

“Be calm, you are talking too much.” 

“So be it; I will be quiet, but listen to me, and do 
as I say. Order the carriage, and take the train for 
Pau ; you will be there in less than two hours. Here 
is the name of a notary that you will go to see ; he 
has my will. Bring him here without losing a 
moment; tell him to bring the document.” 

“ But,” observed Patrice, “you disturb this man 
uselessly. A few lines in your own handwriting is 
worth all the notaries and stamped paper in the 
world. ” 

“Ho, no! I have a countryman’s ideas. I believe 
in a notary and official paper. Go, my old friend ; 
no lawsuits after I am gone. You will be here in 
five hours. Bring back Maubourguet dead or alive. 
I shall be on live coals until I have everything in 
order.” 

“Be quiet, and I will go this very moment. You 
will not? My God ! it is not the journey to Pau that 
I care for, it is the thought of leaving you for half 
a day. Why can I not simply send a telegran?” 

“No. If the telegram should he lost on the way! 
If the notary should not he at home! You would 
find him; you would bring him, willing or not. 
When I have seen him, when I have done what I 
wish to do, a great load will be lifted from my 
heart. It is a misfortune for a man to love too pas- 


SEALED LIPS. 


229 


sionately and too late. Remember these words 
some day — She will pardon me. Now kiss me and 
go.” 

The two friends embraced, and later it was a 
great consolation to one of them to remember this 
caress which revived the best days of their love. 

Patrice did not take a carriage, he was a a'ood 
walker, and the station was near. He started off 
at a rapid pace, never suspecting that he left 
Madame Sauval half wild with uneasiness and curi- 
osity. The good lady was to all appearances de- 
voted to her duties as nurse, but she kept an atten- 
tive eye on this field of battle, this Waterloo which 
was to decide her daughter’s future and her own. 
But this time Grouchy came too soon. Why was 
not Algeria farther away. Why did this detestable 
O’Farrell come to thwart Kemeneff’s affairs? 

This private interview between the two friends 
followed by Patrice’s hurried departure toward the 
station meant nothing good. Where was this 
young man going? To seek a doctor? There was 
no necessity of so much mystery for that, a servant 
would do the errand just as well. Then, too, Gode- 
froid felt better if one was to believe him. 

“ How tiresome this struggle for life is!” thought 
Martscha, thinking only of herself, forgetting this 
struggle against death going on before her very 
eyes. 

Meanwhile Godefroid had, as usual, given himself 
up to his valet’s care, but just as they were about 


230 


{SEALED LLPS. 


to call liis wife he had an attack of suffocation. 
The servant was accustomed to these attacks, and 
went for the mother, as he knew his master’s 
wishes. 

“Ah! this time it is the end!” groaned the in- 
valid, gasping for breath. “Say nothing to my 
wife. I do not wish that she should see my suffer- 
ing. Let me try. I have a few moments yet. I 
must write.” 

In truth it was the end. When the attack was 
eased the last threads were broken. But, like a 
bird whose cage door is left open, and who hesi- 
tates, surprised before trying his wings, so this 
soul delayed its departure. Godefroid himself 
thought that a respite had been accorded him. But 
he saw he was near the dark journey. Twelve 
o’clock sounded. Five hours yet before Patrice 
could return. 

He reflected a few moments, and then motioned 
his mother-in-law to approach : 

“Tell them to leave us alone,” said he; “I wish to 
say a few things that nobody must hear. Bring me 
a pen and paper.” 

The conversation was not long. At the end of 
about ten minutes Jenny was sent for to come to 
the room. If it was Godefroid ’s great desire to de- 
ceive his wife as to his condition, she, on her part, 
took every care to make him believe that she was 
deceived. Although she always knew the slightest 
details as regarded his illness she always avoided 


SEALED LIES. 


231 


any allusion to it, speaking to her husband, always 
in a light tone and with a smile on her lips. 

“I am not pleased with you this morning,” said 
she, “ for you have stolen more than a hour away 
from me. I excuse you, however, since you gave it 
to your friend.” 

“To our friend,” corrected Godefroid. “Do not 
be jealous of it ; you will have me to yourself for 
several hours. He has gone to Pau.” 

“Then what made you so late? It was your fas- 
tidiousness, I am sure of it. Do you think, my dear 
Antoine, that I am not able to give you credit until 
you are cured, for a few strokes of the brush to 
your hair and the trimming of your beard?” 

“One must not give credit to bad debtors,” said 
the dying man, softly, as he kissed his wife’s hand 
with a strange timidity, as if some troublesome 
third party had ordered this reserve. 

This tiresome third person was there, a witness to 
the amorous caresses of this husband. He was 
standing there between the two. The dying man 
saw this invisible messenger lying in wait in the 
darkness, mute and livid, waiting for the hour to 
strike. 

“What a pretty rose you have in your bodice!” 
said Godefroid, while his eyes looked higher than 
the flower, to the face that he loved best in all the 
world. 

She gdVe him the rose, and he pressed it to his 
lips; as he made the movement to do so she saw 


232 


HEALED LIPS. 


that one of his fingers had a spot of ink on it. still 
moist. 

“What!” exclaimed she, taking the soiled finger 
softly in her hand, “is this the way they perform 
your toilet! It was hardly worth while to be so 
long. You look like a neglected schoolboy. Give 
me a brush and some soap ! This time your wife 
will be of some use !” 

She started to go into the dressing-room, but he 
held her with what remaining force he had. 

“My wife, my beloved wife!” sighed he, giving 
Jenny a look that had as much love in it as human 
eyes could contain. 

When he had gazed at her for several moments 
he said, in a singularly sweet and quiet voice, these 
words which the young wife would remember in 
days to come : 

“ Dearest treasure of my life, leave this stain as 
it is. I made it by giving those I love the last proof 
of my affection, that they may he happy when I am 
no more. Do you hear me, Jenny? let this stain 
remain on my finger. It will be the last seal of my 
passport, if what you have said so often, that the 
step that I am going to take is only a voyage 
toward another life. I would like to go with this 
mark upon me.” 

A cruel agony, like the grasp of an enemy’s 
hand, obliged him to stop. His features changed 
so quickly that the young wife nearly fainted, for it 
seemed to her that the Godefroid that she had al- 


SEALED LIPS. 


233 


ways known had departed, leaving in his place a 
twin brother, but aged, despoiled, and devastated, 
still imposing with his air of heroic grandeur. 

He could only say these words which were his 
farewell ones to those here below : 

“My poor Patrice! How I wished to wait for 
him!” 

Then, after a short silence, a name passed his 
lips, a name that he had scarcely pronounced since 
his childhood : 

“God!” 

At the expected hour Patrice and his companion 
reached the station, and were very much surprised 
to find no carriage waiting for them. But as the 
weather was beautiful, and it was hardly dark, 
they walked the distance very quickly. When they 
reached the house, nobody was in the antechamber 
to receive them. 

“Monsieur,” said Patrice to the notary, “will you 
take a seat in the parlor. I will go and see what is 
the matter up-stairs.” 

Godefroid lay upon his large bed all dressed and 
seemingly asleep. His face was calm ; all appear- 
ance of suffering had disappeared, and he seemed 
to have grown younger. What showed Patrice the 
kind of sleep in which he lay was to see that his 
hands held with the awkwardness of death a cruci- 
fix and a rose, Jenny’s rose. 

Without looking to see if others were there, he 


234 


SEALED LIPS. 


fell prostrate with his head upon the winding sheet 
and great sobs burst from him. 

Suppressed moans replied to his from the other 
side of the bed. Separated by the dead as they 
were by the living, O’Farrell and Jenny wept. 

During this time Madame Sauval was running 
from garret to cellar, giving orders, and making 
preparations, for death is a guest that does not pass 
over a threshold without causing more trouble and 
fatigue than a prince’s visit. When the Roumanian 
entered the parlor with a lamp in her hand she was 
very much surprised to find a stranger seated in an 
arm-chair, hands in his pockets and coat buttoned 
up to his chin, for the night was becoming cool, 
and nobody had taken care to light a fire on the 
hearth. 

The unknown arose thinking that she had come 
to conduct him to his client’s room. 

“Were you waiting for somebody, monsieur?” 
asked Madame Sauval, in an imperious tone. 

“I am the notary,” said this person, bowing. 
“Monsieur Antoine Godefroid sent for me.” 

“Monsieur Godefroid is dead!” said Martscha, 
darting a terrible glance at the man of law. 

“But it is not my fault,” stammered Maubourguet, 
for these hard, accusing eyes seemed to trouble him 
in spite of himself. “ I came without losing a mo- 
ment as soon as he sent for me.” 

“Did my son-in-law send for you?” 


SEALED LIPS . 


235 


“Yes, madam. One of his friends came to find 
me at Pau. I have brought the will.” 

“Was there a will?” said Madame Sauval. “Par- 
don, monsieur, but at such a moment. And you 
are the one who has received my son-in-law’s last 
wishes?” 

“I am the one,” said the notary, with a bow. 
“Did you not know it?” 

“No, nor my daughter either. Can one? Do the 
duties of your office forbid ” 

“On the contrary, madam. The will contains 
certain directions concerning his funeral. He 
wishes to be buried at Pomeyras without any dis- 
play or any invitations outside the family.” 

“Poor man! so modest! so opposed to show! 1 
recognize him in this. And his other desires?” 

“All left to his wife,” said the notary, opening his 
bag. 

“He had such a good heart!” sighed the mother- 
in-law. 

This sigh, to tell the truth, resembled a sigh of 
relief. 

“Then my poor daughter is the only heir to her 
husband’s fortune?” 

“Yes, madam. Only ” 

The Roumanian trembled; there was an “only!” 
Her heart commenced to beat as it had beaten only 
under two or three grave circumstances in her life. 
The man of law continued after having put on his 


236 


SEALED LIPS. 


glasses, and found upon the paper the passage re- 
ferred to : 

“Only in case of a. second marriage the wife will 
lose all rights to the estate, which will be divided 
in equal parts between two of the relatives of the 
deceased.” 

The notary had had experience in such cases as 
this, so took off his glasses and took his hat per- 
fectly indifferent as to braving the storm. But he 
did not know Martscha. She had had time to re- 
flect. She said to herself that Kemeneff would be 
reduced some hundred thousand francs. She 
quietly replaced the handkerchief, parsimoniosuly 
wet with tears, in her pocket, from which she had 
taken it a little too soon. As she did so her hand 
touched the envelope that she had forgotten and of 
whose contents she was ignorant, for it was not 
addressed to her. 

Her first impulse was to tell Maubourguet by 
whose hand and under what circumstances she had 
received the mysterious paper. Her usual prudence 
stopped this impulse. 

“Eh! eh!” thought she. “That is a thing to be 
seen. We will not be in a hurry.” 

She took her lamp and stepped aside to let the 
notary pass before her : 

“Pardon me, monsieur, if I do not detain you 
longer. But just now there are so many thousand 
little details ” 

Without troubling herself as to what this man 


SEALED LIPS. 


237 


would do at six o’clock at night in the open country 
and unknown roads, she conducted him to the door 
a little quicker than etiquette demanded. He was 
furious, but before going out he had time to dis- 
charge this Parthian arrow cunningly chosen from 
his pettifogger’s quiver : 

“ Good-night ! Do not forget that the testator’s 
will obliges you to seal everything up for the inven- 
tory, the ” 

Madame Sauval interrupted this prophet of evil 
by closing the door in his face. Then she went up 
to her room, and carefully shut herself up there, 
coming out at the end of a quarter of an hour more 
tranquil in appearance. 

“Whatever happens we will let it rest now,” said 
she to herself. “I have nothing to do for three 
hundred days. Many things may happen in ten 
months!” 


238 


SEALED LIES. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

“HE HAS NEVER LOVED ME!” 

Ten months later, that is at the end of the autumn, 
the apartment in Rue de Vienne had resumed its 
ordinary aspect, with the exception that the piano 
was always closed and the widow in deep mourning 
never sang now. 

Paris hardly remembers the name of the composer 
Godefroid or of a singer named Jenny Sauval, and 
God knows that Martscha is not desirous of recall- 
ing these two souvenirs. 

Patrice left the cemetery after the sexton had 
finished filling his friend’s grave, and went to the 
depot after a simple shaking of hands with the 
widow. He never saw her a moment without wit- 
nesses outside of the death chamber. It was a 
strange thing, but in spite of the Roumanian’s 
strong nerves she was remarked during the cere- 
mony by her extreme grief. One would have said 
that she was afraid to approach the coffin, as if 
from its icy depths a terrible voice might question 
her. 

She wished to leave Pomeyras as soon as the legal 
formalities were over with ; this was only an affair 
of a day; and if the maledictions of the living could 
trouble the repose of the dead, Godefroid would 


SCALED LIPS. 


239 


have spent a very bad night in his tomb. Jenny 
seemed to have lost all will and all interest in life 
whatsoever, and allowed herself to be taken to 
Paris without the slightest resistance. 

Once installed in her apartments, separated by 
two hundred leagues from her son-in-law’s remains, 
the Roumanian recovered her superb calmness, and 
seemed relieved of some .nightmare. She was not 
wanting in amusements. She had taken in hand 
the administration of her daughter’s fortune. It 
was a medley, composed of documents printed in 
all colors and written in every tongue. Martscha 
was only to be seen before the bank windows and 
other large companies, for she acted as collecting 
clerk herself, and she said that nobody should stick 
a nose in Jenny’s business. 

There was no music, according to her ideas, to 
compare with the clink of the gold upon the marble 
of the cashier’s desk. The silky rustle of the bank- 
notes counted one by one by the clerks magnetized 
her, and no voluptuous love tremor had ever been to 
her like this delicious thrill that she experienced as 
she held her hand tightly grasped around her 
pockets to defend herself against pickpockets. 

Sometimes, it is true, the thought of the “rela- 
tives” poisoned her enjoyment. The detestable 
creatures ! One day their avaricious hands would 
detach these coupons and handle these dividends. 
But then Jenny would be a princess. 

“Princess!” repeated Martscha, closing her eyes. 


240 


SEALED LIPS. 


“Unless — truly it is a good thing to have two 
strings to one's bow.” 

Meanwhile Kemeneff , in spite of several attempts, 
had not been received by the young woman, but his 
name in default of his person had often reached 
Jenny’s ears. Madame Sauval met him two or 
three times every week, and as her widowhood had 
become an old story to her, there was nothing to 
prevent her holding a conversation with his excel- 
lency. On her return she would acquaint her 
daughter with the fortunate accidental meetings. 

“Poor man !” said she, “I cannot get it out of my 
head that he lies in wait expressly to meet me. He 
asks me a hundred questions about you, and is 
dying to see you. But he respects your desire for 
solitude. I asked him when he was going to install 
himself at Biarritz. Would you like to know what 
he said?” 

“ It is useless. I will not hear or see anybody,” 
said the young widow, softly shaking her head. 
“ Why will they not permit me to wear my mourn- 
ing in peace?” 

If she had let anybody know her real thoughts 
she would have said that she wore mourning for 
two persons— one who was lying in the cemetery at 
Pomeyras, the other buried and giving no signs of 
life in his forest at Telagh. She would have said 
that she had a sincere attachment for each of them, 
different in their nature, but mixed with an un- 
avowed bitterness almost equal. Godefroid she felt 


SEALED LLPS. 


241 


angry at, for his last provision, not for the material 
results to her detriment, hut for this jealousy that- 
seemed to impose fidelity to the dead, at the risk of 
forfeit. The other irritated her by his indifference 
which was confirmed more and more as the weeks 
rolled by. 

In order to hear from Patrice, Jenny was obliged 
to write the firsc letter. Since then the young 
man’s letters had grown further and further apart. 
One would almost suppose that he wished to let the 
correspondence drop entirely. When he spoke of 
Godefroid it was with a constraint easily seen be- 
tween the lines. One day, struck by this coldness, 
she asked herself : 

“ Can it be possible that he was not satisfied with 
the souvenirs of little value left him by his friend? 
Is he visiting his disappointment upon me?” This 
supposition seemed to her like an injury, and she 
refused to believe it. At least one thing was 
evident. 

“He has never loved me!” sighed she. “And I 
have obstinately believed in this idea of a generous 
falsehood. What is there to prevent his speaking 
now?” 

She s&ffered the double humiliation of a love that 
it was impossible to stifle, ridiculous after having 
been almost guilty, and the consciousness of her 
great error. 

The twelfth month of her widowhood was passing 
away. Jenny felt that it was time to make an 


242 


SEALED LIPS. 


effort to shake off her painful languor and look the 
future in the face, as a prisoner released from con- 
finement asks himself what route his limbs, tired 
from so long a rest, should take. 

She was nearly twenty-seven years old, and cer- 
tainly there were very few women who were gifted 
to such a degree. But of what use were all these 
graces? What use was her youthful sacrifice, her 
unrequited heart, her music disdained like a jewel 
that is out of fashion, and so far as her beauty was 
concerned, she never thought of it now. It had 
been so long since she had seen anybody to tell her 
that she was beautiful ! Her fortune was distaste- 
ful to her, as money earned too quickly, and that she 
must return some day should her heart venture to 
speak. She did not love her mother now, for some- 
times the Roumanian had not succeeded in deceiv- 
ing her, she who secretly flattered herself that she 
deceived all the world. 

This model of motliers-in-law remarked to her 
daughter that they must not fail to be at Pomeyras 
on the anniversary of Godefroid’s death. 

“Assuredly,” said the young widow, astonished 
at this pious respect for the dead. “ It is our duty 
to assist at the service.” 

They left the next day, and Jenny found herself 
once more in the house where she was born ; this 
time she had no feeling of joy. The memories that 
she tried to throw off took the place of those that 
had filled her heart from childhood. 


SEALED LIPS. 


243 


“Alas!” thought she, “is there a place in the 
world that will not recall remembrances that are 
mixed with sorrow?” 

The villagers thronged at the religious ceremony, 
although the greater part of them had never seen 
three times the one who had been for so short a 
time, “the master of Pomeyras.” As they left the 
church Kemeneff waited for the young woman to 
pay his respects and touch the tips of her fingers. 
After this ceremonious formality, all the parish 
gathered to see him mount the seat of his phaeton, 
and start off on a trot for Biarritz, to the great dis- 
appointment of certain prophets. 

This proceeding of the prince sincerely touched 
the heart of Godefroid’s widow. She had consid- 
ered him for a long time as a true friend, and he 
was the one in whom she had confided when she 
wished to recall Patrice to the dying bed. 

The next day, when he made a visit to Pomeyras, 
this loyal gentleman laid his heart and his fortune 
at the young woman’s feet; she seemed to feel only 
a slight surprise at this, and said, without accept- 
ing or refusing him, that she was very much 
touched at his offer. Then she reflected a moment, 
leaning her head on her beautiful hand as she often 
did now since her widowhood. 

“My dear prince,” said she at last, “I esteem you 
too much not to open my heart to you. It does not 
depend upon me to make you 4 the happiest of 
men/ to speak in your own language. I swear to 


244 


SEALED LIPS. 


you that I loyally did all in my power to give my 
husband happiness, otherwise it would be a trouble 
to me the rest of my life to think that he died from 
sorrow. Not a shadow of a guilty thought has 
made me blush before him. A souvenir only, the 
shadow of a regret that haunted my heart, separ- 
ated us. That seems a little thing, does it not? 
Well, then, sooner than to impose upon another, it 
may be to myself also another year of torture, I will 
pass the rest of my life watching flocks on the poor- 
est farm in this village.” 

Kemeneff approached the young woman, and 
kneeling before her said, as he kissed her hand : 

“You are the woman that I thought you were, 
and now more than ever I love you. Speak to me 
without disguise, for a longtime I have known your 
secret. Do you think still that Patrice O’Farrell 
thinks of you?” 

“What does it matter, since I think of him? 
What will you do to take away this thought? Ah! 
if you only could !” 

“What I will do is this,” said Kemeneff, beaming 
with hope. “I will give you all that Godefroid 
could not give you. Love we will not talk of, for I 
know that he loved you passionately, unwisely per- 
haps. But you shall have what a woman of your 
age, beauty, and mind should have— recreation and 
society. At Biarritz the people had only to see you 
to be at your feet. You will see how at the court of 
my own country a Frenchwoman of your accom- 


SEALED LIPS. 


245 


plishments will be received. You will see how a 
woman like you ” 

“A woman like me would be unhappy on a 
throne,” interrupted she, “unless with time she can 
overcome disastrous illusions. Prince, here is my 
response— will you wait one year?” 

“And in a year you will give yourself to me if 
you are assured that the absent one does not love 
you?” said he, with a smile and a trace of bitter- 
ness. 

“Yes,” said she, gravely, “if [ am certain that 
you still love me. One word more — you know what 
provisions have been made on my account? I come 
to you with empty hands.” 

“Good!” said Kemeneff, shrugging his shoulders. 
“Do you class me with those heroes of romance 
who think that they give a supreme proof of their 
love in dividing their fortunes with a poor wife? 
Empty or loaded with treasures, your hands are to 
me the most beautiful in the world. My only merit 
will be to wait one year. But I shall wait. Will 
you allow me to see you sometimes?” 

“Sometimes,” emphasized she; “that is to say 
very little. If you wish to please me you will pass 
the greater part of the time in Russia. My confi- 
dences must have made you see that with me you 
will not gain anything by being near, neither lose 
anything by being away.” 

That same evening Jenny sent off a long letter to 
O’Farrell, which ended with these words: 


246 


SEALED LIPS. 


“This is what Prince Kemeneff has said to me, 
without omitting one phrase. As to my reply, it is 
sufficient to know that I have taken one year to 
reflect in, and also — I do not conceal it from you 
that he has suspected— to have your advice. I do 
not know how to do without it in this case, in spite 
of the slight interest that you have shown as to my 
future ; I remember the very active part that you 
once took in my decision in a case of the same kind. 

“What shall I say? You can judge with perfect 
competence. You know the prince ; you know me 
also. I have not changed in any way; I am exactly 
the same. All that I once said to you I say now, 
although I admit it the great hope of my heart is 
far from being justified by the pretension of disin- 
terestedness that you have shown me. 

“Now then, if you tell me to marry Kemeneff 1 
will follow your counsel, for it will be given with- 
out restraint this time. I do not suppose that the 
prince has any all-powerful rights over your friend- 
ship. You owe him nothing that I know, and I can 
guarantee that he will not kill himself if I refuse 
to marry him. Thus you have no reason to sacri- 
fice me over again unless the role of preparing sac- 
rifices is particularly to your taste. 

“Answer me when you have maturely reflected ; 
we have time. You hold in your hands for the sec- 
ond time a poor woman’s happiness and her future. 
It is a very little thing, but little as it may be, in 
whatever mold your heart may have been cast, this 


SEALED LIPS. 


247 


woman should be the first, unless the Algerian air 
has killed all remembrances in you.” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

“WHAT should he respond ?” 

Telagh has changed very much since the young 
manager for the Societe de Forests has taken pos- 
session of his post. It is not that the place has be- 
come less solitary or wild, nor that one is less 
deprived of the comforts of civilized life. Patrice 
had not the ideas of our great colonizers of to-day. 

“In matters of civilization,” said he, whbn he 
talked with a person capable of understanding him, 
“the welfare of the conqueror plays a less efficient 
role than the comfort of the conquered population.” 

All the furniture that he had in his room yet was 
a deal table and two arm-chairs covered with sack- 
ing made by the carpenter belonging to the mili- 
tary detachment that occupied the bordj in the be- 
ginning. His narrow bed had not been enriched 
by a mattress, and the varied menus of Madame 
Lafon continued to make all the change at his 
table. One single cipher had increased into the 
billions the Telagh undertaking. The business was 
known in Paris as a choice investment. The shares 


248 


SEALED LIPS. 


were constantly rising; Patrice did more for the 
others than he did for himself. In a few months 
the bordj had a school for the children, a chapel 
officiated in every week by a priest, and often vis- 
ited by Pere Chrysostome, an embryo hospital and 
an apothecary. Roads were laid out through the 
woods, villages of wood-cutters w'ere organized, 
and a saw-mill had just been completed. “M’siou 
Patriz,” as the Arabs called him, was by turns 
engineer, doctor, general nurse, and primary in- 
spector. He passed his days on horseback, and his 
nights, often very short, were very wakeful. Hope- 
less and nameless love always held the same place 
in his heart, but it was not the chief wheel in the 
mechanism of his life. He never ceased for one 
second to love, but he could, thanks to work, pass 
entire hours without suffering. 

Work is the great liberator of the human soul 
conquered by sorrow. It not on]y opens the prison 
doors — often voluntary — which the remembrance of 
an unhappy moment has kept closed, but often 
with its rude hand it pushes us over the gloomy 
threshold. In spite of us at first we drag our 
heavy, weary steps, without ceasing to be reminded 
of the fatal souvenir by the bruising of the chains 
and the sight of the afflicted in distress which 
iseems to fasten to us. But soon, like captives re- 
compensed for their courageous efforts, we feel the 
iron weight diminish, and we assume the agile 
vigor of a free man ; we become wrestlers after 


SEALED LIPS. 


249 


having been conquered. Grief remains riveted to 
our heart forever, but in place of languishing, we 
proudly carry the dear and noble burden concealed 
from all. 

Sometimes fate, that cruel master, opens by a 
trick our half -closed wounds. It was thus with 
Patrice, in two minutes Jenny’s letter made him 
retrograde in his cure two years. All the madness 
of love, all his regrets for the past, took possession 
of his heart, and at the same time a dear voice 
breathed in his ear once more a cry of unrequited 
love. What should he respond?” 

During the whole night he felt that his love was 
renewed with a new force. He was waiting for 
daylight to write these lines which would finish all 
this struggle between two bruised hearts: 

“ The one whom you should marry is not Kem- 
eneff, it is I, I, whom you love and who have loved 
you since the first moment that I saw you.” 

Who could prevent him? One single obstacle ex- 
isted at this hour between him and the widow 
Godefroid — the religion of a vow. But death had 
given liberty to the husband; had it not, at the 
same blow, released the friend from his crazy 
promise? Could the being lying in his tomb own 
anything, could he yet watch over his rights as to 
the wishes of the living? Is it anything btit a 
thought, a name vibrating in a cold echo? What 
do human actions signify to one who has nothing 
to gain, lose, or suffer? 


250 


SEALED LLPS. 


In the midst of feverish slumber Patrice invoked 
his friend’s spirit. 

“Do you hear me?” said he, “you who have cost 
me so dear. Are you there? If your soul is happy 
in its new home and knows nothing of events here 
below, what matters it to you if she wears a new 
nuptial ring? What matters a few words of love or 
caresses to you? If you see us, show by some sign 
that your spirit is near us. Perform one of those 
miracles so many tell of. Godefroid, I am calling 
you! I suffer. We both suffer, and you loved us 
both so much! Godefroid, have pity upon us!” 

In the darkness of the night the young man lis- 
tened, bathed in perspiration, lying in wait for the 
slightest sound — the cracking of furniture, a blow 
upon the wall, or a sigh like the rustling of a bird’s 
wing. But in vain his nerves strained to the high- 
est pitch. The night never was so still, outside as 
well as within. The forest even, so rarely quiet, 
did not make a moan. Life and death seemed to be 
in league to refuse the sign. A little before day- 
light, vanquished by fatigue, he closed his eyes not 
to open them until the sun was shining in full splen- 
dor. Suddenly the chapel bell rang in a certain 
way that he well understood. 

“Pere Chrysostome has arrived!” exclaimed he, 
hastening to dress himself. 

The indefatigable missionary had just entered 
Telagh, having traveled all night to reach there at 
his usual hour. When Patrice joined him mass 


SEALED LIES. 


251 


was over, and they turned their steps toward the 
school. 

“Come,” said the young man, hurrying along the 
astonished priest. “ To-day you have something else 
more difficult to do than to teach the catechism to 
children. You must decide the repose of the living 
and the dead, too, perhaps.” 

When they were seated alone in the modest little 
parlor Patrice said : 

“You know the only secret of my life. The first 
time we met here my lips, in spite of myself, told 
you. I was alone then in one of those frightful de- 
pressions when one would open his heart to a tree.” 

“Do you regret these confidences?” asked the 
priest, in a brave and soothing voice. 

“No, certainly not. If I have not spoken of it in 
our conversations it was because at. any price I 
wished to forget, and I believe that forgetfulness is 
bought by silence.” 

“The best remedies do not always cure. As to 
me, I never see you without thinking of your 
trouble, and often when far from you, I have 
prayed that it might become less heavy.” 

“Prayers, like remedies, are sometimes useless.” 

“Never !” exclaimed Pere Chrysostome, raising 
his beautiful face shining with faith. “ But let us 
see _ w hat has happened? I find you in low spirits. 
Now, then ! What is it?” 

“Her husband is dead.” 

“Ah!” said the priest, “he is dead! Since when?” 


252 


SEALED LIPS. 


“More than a year. It was to close his eyes that 
I made that trip to France. Poor friend ! 'I was not 
able to conceal my secret to the end. As he was 
about to die he discovered it.” 

The missionary sighed, and his face took on a sad 
expression. He said, with lowered eyes : 

“ That must have been good, to die discovering 
the sublime generosity of a friend! Well, my child, 
has the hour for earthly recompense come for you?” 

“ Yes,” said Patrice, rising. “The one that I love 
is free. A prince worth his millions has asked her 
hand in marriage. He is not the one she wants, I 
am the one. She has written and called me. To 
be mine she will become poor, but what matters 
that to her? She also knows how to love?” 

“Well?” asked the priest, with a questioning 
look. 

“Well, monpere, in a fatal hour, pushed to ex- 
tremities by the atrocious words of the unfortunate 
man who is no more, I took an oath ; I swore that 
this woman should never be mine, even if by her 
husband’s death she became free.” 

“Ah, poor children! How I pity you from my 
very soul!” 

“Then,” asked the young man, in a gasping tone, 
falling into a seat, “you think that honor binds me 
even in death?” 

“Honor, yes, the sacred religion of an oath. 
Listen to me. If you had sworn to bury your friend 
in this desert where we are, would you not have 


SEALED LIPS. 


253 


braved all obstacles to bring his body here? Still 
what matters it where our bodies rest?” 

“It is not only a body that it is a question of 
burying. It is a heart, and the heart of one other. 
Can you tell me that you would do that — you? Had 
I a right to make such a vow?” 

“No, for God commands us not to make vows 
only to himself alone. If you had consulted me 
when there was time I should have said, 4 Swear 
not!’ But to-day the deed is done. The sacred 
promise weighs upon you forever. And now I am 
going to answer the question that you asked me- 
Should I have done that? I have done something 
more that that, for a living ear has heard your 
vow, while I have sworn to a dead friend at my 
feet. It was on my account, because of my treason, 
that he died in calling me accursed. Then pity, 
remorse, and terror filled my soul. Like you, I 
took an oath, and if I am before you now in my 
priest’s robe in my beggar’s poverty, far from all 
that I have loved, it is because I have kept my vow 
made to the dead. I, too, am dead; my name is 
forgotten by all. To certain voices that call me I 
am deaf. When soon, under some mountain rock, 
my tomb is dug out, those who will place me there, 
you perhaps, will not be able to put anything but a 
simple cross there. Do you still doubt, my son?” 

Instead of replying Patrice drew near Pere Chrys- 
ostome, and seized his hands, crying in bitter 
despair : 


254 


SEALED LIPS. 


“But you do not know that this unhappy man, 
one hour before his death, seemed to repent of all 
that he had done. I am as sure as I am that I see 
you, that he wished to change his last will and free 
me from my promise ; I read it in his eyes, and 
suspected it from what he said. Alas ! time failed 
him, death came too soon. Who knows what 
supreme, unspeakable regrets he took away with 
him?” 

“ Who knows what was the last thought of his 
dying will? Keep your oath, my son. You will be 
astonished when your hair is as white as mine to 
have suffered so much for so slight a thing as a 
woman’s beauty. What is a woman compared to 
peace all your life! What! you sacrificed your 
love when you were free to gratify it because you 
did not wish to see the despair of the living, and 
you would inflict upon the soul a death of torture 
beside which the most frightful suffering here is 
only play.” 

“You will not hear the imprecations of your 
friend, it is true, nor his reproaches. But his un- 
quiet soul, unhappy because of you, will be always 
present watching both of you, your slightest acts, 
hearing each of your words, assisting at all of your 
pleasures, and calling upon you and your com- 
panion the punishment of perjurers. Ah! it is 
horrible!” 

“What!” said O’Farrell, “is that what is called 
repose in the other life?” 


SEALED LIPS. 


255 


“ This repose exists only for souls sufficiently puri- 
fied. Which of us can tell when eternal happiness 
commences for us, that nothing troubles, neither 
cries, nor tears, nor resentments? When will this 
time, without a to-morrow, come with its indestruc- 
tible peace? At the end of a year or at the end of a 
century ?” 

The priest arose, as if incapable of saying more. 
A few moments after, although he had promised to 
remain until the next day, he passed out of the in- 
closure, and started off toward the mountains. 

Patrice wrote Jenny that same day. 

“You have asked my opinion. I advise you to 
accept Kemeneff. How can you hesitate at the 
future that is before you? What being in this world 
could offer you more than the prince? With him you 
cannot fail to be happy. He loves you devotedly ; 
you have proved it. I have the deepest esteem for 
him. Can the prayers of a faithful friend add any 
to your happiness?” 

This was all. Twenty lines followed, speaking of 
Patrice’s health, the work at Telagh, and the ap- 
pearance of Pere Chrysostome. 

The young woman read her sentence, and crushed 
the paper in her hand with a gesture of rage. 

“The ungrateful, deluded man!” exclaimed she. 
“Not one word to show that he understands me! 
He shall be satisfied. I will marry the prince, but 
what good to make him wait one year? If he will 


256 


SEALED LIPS. 


take me from a cruel memory, the sooner the 
better.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE DEAD HAS SPOKEN TO ME. 

In spite of his promise not to come to Pomeyras 
only “sometimes,” Kemeneff hardly let a week pass 
without coming there. When Jenny reproached 
him for not keeping his promise : 

“But,” said he, “ ‘sometimes/ for those who love, 
means, ‘Not every day!’ ” 

It was another thing when she recalled to his 
mind that he had promised to go to Russia. 

“Do you know the best way to make me go im- 
mediately?” asked the prince, his eyes sparkling 
like a spoiled child’s. “It is to go there with me. 
You have imposed upon me one year of waiting, 
but it seems to me a century. What do you gain 
by making me unhappy until next winter? What 
more will you know than you do to-day?” 

This response, said in loud and clear tones, was 
what the young woman had repeated to herself 
ever since she read Patrice’s last letter. What good 
was it to wait? There was no doubt in her mind to 
be dispelled. Hope was dead in her heart. A fool- 
ish fancy for two years had made her life wretched; 


SEALED LIPS. 


257 


she had not had the courage to forget the dream 
for the reality, nor the glory of sacrificing her 
future for the dream. Was it not time to be cured, 
and what remedy could save her better than the life 
of luxury and excitement that was offered her? 

At last two things determined her resolution— the 
fear of being ridiculous in Patrice’s eyes and the 
ardent desire of freeing herself of this fortune of 
which every farthing was a souvenir of the past. 

During the first spring days that followed Gode- 
froid’s death, Serge learned from his fiancee that 
his happiness should not longer be delayed. They 
wished , to keep it a secret as much as possible, to 
celebrate the ceremony at Pomeyras, and leave im- 
mediately for St. Petersburg, where great festivities 
would greet the new princess. A reporter, very 
well informed — doubtless, by Madame Sauval — 
baffled this desire for silence in a sensational article 
which awoke the echoes of the press. Soon this 
news, that they wished to conceal, became the sen- 
sation of the day. One evening at the opera, in 
the directors’ box, some one seriously advised the 
reproduction of “Constantin,” on the score of gen- 
eral curiosity. 

“I would like nothing better,” replied the man- 
ager, who well knew his Paris, “if the princess 
would assume her role. We should make money.” 

As to the “Filets de Vulcain,” it had never com- 
pletely disappeared from the stage, but it now at- 
tracted crowds. 


258 


SEALED LIPS. 


Naturally they did not forget the happy fiance, 
Kemeneff. The journals doubled his millions. They 
made him a Kussian nobleman, and according to 
the story, one who was fickle with women, a tippler 
of champagne, a great bear hunter — a strongly ex- 
aggerated portrait, at least as far as the bears were 
concerned. But they would have made him shoot 
lions on the plains of Siberia if it had been the 
fashion. 

Everything was turned to his credit, even the 
story of the will. Jenny was not the one wdio was 
disinherited. It was the prince who had volun- 
tarily refused to touch one penny of his predeces- 
sor’s fortune, an example of disinterestedness that 
gave rise to piquant comparisons. 

As to the ones who were to receive their relative's 
fortune, I doubt if they would have exchanged 
places with the prince. 

One was a farmer in Tourraine, the other a city 
clerk in Bordeaux. In fact, a person might write 
one of those “studies,” so much the fashion to-daj r , 
in depicting the joys, fears, hopes, and projects for 
the future that these good people and their families 
lay awake to talk about many nights. But our 
story does not concern them. 

The only one whom nobody talked about was 
Patrice O’Farrell. Like everybody else, he had 
read the great news in the papers, and one can 
readily imagine that Jenny’s haste to obey him did 
not give him unalloyed satisfaction. Seeing that 


SEALED LIPS. 


259 


she did not communicate her resolution to him 
directly, he smiled sadly, and thought : 

“ She is doing her very best to hate me. I ought 
to wish that she may succeed.” 

But he wished nothing of the kind. On the con- 
trary, he asked himself what would happen if he 
should leave Algeria and go and say to the future 
princess: 

“ Here I am ! Leave Kemeneff and his millions, 
and come with me into my desert.” 

Two years before he would have been unable to 
have prevented himself from doing thus, but long 
months passed in solitude and work at the foot of 

~ i 

the Atlas mountains calms the spirit and senses of 
a man. He still loved, and was only too sure that 
he should do so all his life, only he was used to his 
trouble, he was like those cripples who have made 
up their minds to be lame, and go through the world 
with one leg shorter than the other rather than 
spend their money on a doctor. 

When Kemeneff’s love allowed him to think, he 
thought that his titles, his millions, and even him- 
self, were received in a very cool manner. But 
Madame Sauval became his confident, and had a 
word of consolation for him. 

“What do you complain of?” said she. “Instead 
of waiting a year you are let off with three months. 
If there is any feeling of indifference I must admit 
that I know nothing about it. My daughter is not 
of the age to jump with joy like a schoolgirl on the 


260 


SEALED LIPS. 


eve of her vacation. Believe me ; do not fret your- 
self, and sleep soundly.” 

She, too, if she had told the truth, would have 
admitted that she slept badly, above all since they 
had left Paris for Pomeyras. Every night she saw 
Godefroid upon his death-bed, with clasped hands 
and the ink stain upon his finger. For reasons of 
her own this vision caused her disagreeable shivers. 
The worst was that she was obliged to pass through 
that room ten times a day, and it recalled ugly 
souvenirs, for she was obliged to arrange every- 
thing for their approaching departure from Pom- 
eyras for the heirs. It was agreed upon that the 
evening of the marriage they should leave it. 

The village notary drew up the contract under 
Madame Sauval’s dictation. Kemeneff declared 
that he would sign with closed eyes. He only ex- 
acted two things — a magnificent settlement upon 
his wife and an income for his mother-in-law. 

“I take your daughter from you,” said he, “and 
you will see her probably only at rare intervals. 
We wish to feel that you are free from all material 
cares.” 

Eight days before the marriage the future hus- 
band and wife, their witnesses, the mother of the 
future princess, and the notary from Pomeyras 
were seated around a table in the parlor to listen to 
the reading and to sign the documents. A beauti- 
ful April sun lighted the scene. 

Jenny was very agitated and pale, moving rest- 


HEALE1) LIPS. 


261 


lessly in her chair, with her eyes vaguely fixed 
upon the table covered with its leaves of paper. 

She had taken a promenade in the oak walk that 
morning which had recalled many remembrances. 
All the time, during her solitary walk, she felt as if 
two specters were walking beside her, the living 
and the dead. Without being able to explain why, 
it was the dead that she thought of. She seemed 
to hear him speak in the tender fatherly tone that 
he had used during his last hours. This voice was 
so sweet and kind that Jenny’s heart, which had 
been hardened for some time by bitter thoughts, 
was suddenly softened. 

Poor Godefroid ! How unhappy, distracted, and 
crazy with love and jealousy he was when he came 
out of those bushes armed like a thief to intercept 
the letter that told him of his fate. 

And he, the cruel, insensible Patrice, loved 
through all, even at this moment ! Only once dur- 
ing their short meeting had they walked side by 
side in this garden. But then a sad vision came 
between them and froze their lips, and their mel- 
ancholy promenade had no sweet thought attached 
to this spot that she would soon leave forever. To 
abandon Pomeyras would once have given her 
great sorrow, but now it was almost a relief. 

She was to write this name Godefroid once more, 
that she was to change for a strange name. She 
looked sorrowfully at the horizon and the moun- 
tains with their white tops, 


262 


SEALED LIPS . 


“ Adieu to the dead ! Adieu to the living!” said 
she to herself, not listening to the reading. “ Adieu 
to all that I know, all that I love ! The unknown 
calls me. God have pity on me !” 

* * * * * * * 

“Have the parties any observations to make?” 
asked the notary as he read the last line in the 
contract. 

He wiped his forehead, affected by the words 
that he had just written for the first time in his life, 
and, doubtless, for the last — “majesty,” “palace,” 
“hundred thousand roubles.” 

Kemeneff bowed with an easy air, as if to say 
that all seemed right for him. He was the one to 
give; all the others received. 

The notary thought that he had done a good 
day’s work. He said, bowing to Jenny : 

“If madam will put her signature here?” 

The prince gallantly arose, not wishing any other 
should have the honor of offering his fiancee the 
pen. But there are politenesses that cost one 
dearly. 

In dipping the pen into the ink-bottle, which was 
too full, Kemeneff made a stain on his finger. The 
young woman advanced to sign, as soon as she saw 
the hand and the stain she gave a stifled [crv, and 
fell back in a chair ready to faint. It was a strange 
thing, but Martscha, who was not impressionable, 
seemed to be overcome with terror. The prince was 
astonished that such a slight accident could have 


SEALED LIPS. 


263 


such a terrible effect, and did his best to efface the 
stain. 

Meanwhile Jenny arose, and reached the door 
with a tottering step. 

“Mother,” said she, “I beg of you come with me.” 

The Roumanian had already recovered her self- 
possession. She hurried to her daughter’s side, and 
gave her arm, making a sign to the other to have a 
little patience. 

When the two women reached the landing on the 
next floor, instead of going to her own room, Jenny 
turned the handle of the door to the room that was 
not opened often, since Godefroid’s coffin had left 
it. She entered with an impassible, cold face. This 
time she led her mother. 

“Do you remember his death?” asked she, as she 
closed the door. “He had a stain of ink upon his 
finger, like the one I have just seen. Had he been 
writing?” 

“Without doubt,” said Martscha, with trembling 
lips. “ Why is it not possible?” 

“I wish to know what he wrote?” 

The Roumanian replied in a perfectly natural 
tone : 

“I know nothing about it, but one can easily 
imagine.” 

“Imagine! You were near him when he wrote 
his last lines. You ought to know all about it.” 

This was the time for Madame Sauval to make an 
important decision, She did not hesitate, but turn- 


264 : 


SEALED LIPS. 


ing her large eyes where truth seemed to brim over 
like those of a child’s, she said: 

“This is what passed : One hour before his death, 
your husband wished to see a notary in Pau, and 
sent Patrice with a letter. He probably repented of 
his rigorous will, and wished to change it. Unfor- 
tunately he was dead almost immediately after, 
you remember. But there is every evidence that 
he stained his finger in writing that letter.” 

Jenny thought, leaning her head on her hands. 
She could see her husband panting for breath on 
the pillows. She could hear these words, “ I made 
this stain in giving my last pledge of affection to 
those that I love.” Certainly her mother’s explana- 
tion was plausible, but she was still overwhelmed 
with grief. Without partaking in her mother’s 
oriental superstitions, she was not entirely free 
from them. 

“Do you understand now?” asked Madame Sauval. 

Jenny raised her head and slowly said, with her 
eyes fixed upon the bed, with as much emotion as if 
the body still lay there : 

“Yes, I understand one thing that is that the 
dead has just spoken to me. I must not sign.” 

“What!” cried her mother, bounding from her 
seat, “you will not sign?” 

“Not to-day, not so soon, not in this house. Per- 
haps we are committing a sacrilege, something 
very wrong. Think of it! he died there! At this 
moment I am greatly troubled ; I wish to leave; X 


HEALED LIPS. 


265 


am afraid ; all the money in the world would not 
hire me to sleep here to-night. I beg of you go and 
send these men away, I will not see them again, go 
quickly.” 

“But the prince?” 

“ Tell him that I wish to speak to him, but not in 
this room.” 

A quarter of a hour after, Kemeneff left his 
fiancee , and took the road to Biarritz in a state of 
mind and an attitude that recalled to mind Hippo- 
lyte making his last trip over the road to Mycenes. 
Fortunately his horses were exhausted — he was 
only waiting until after the marriage to sell them — 
and they knew every little pile of stones on the 
way. No sea monster jumped out from a ditch to 
cause an upset, and they reached the villa without 
any accident. 

“ May the devil take me if I can understand what 
has happened !” growled the prince when alone in 
his smoking room. “Three months’ delay! Will 
this new delay that she tremblingly asked for, look- 
ing prettier than ever, be the last? I am a tine fel- 
low; I think Russians are capricious!” 

A letter from Madame Sauval, date the night be- 
fore, was received the next day, but gave him but 
slight relief. 

“We leave in an hour for Paris,” wrote Martscha. 
“ If my daughter should remain in Pomeyras she 
would certainly become crazy. Positively she has 
hallucinations ; I believe that she has seen Gode* 


266 


SEALED LIP 'S. 


froid’s ghost. Such things do happen. But in eight 
days he will not appear again, and then she will 
sign. We shall see you soon, prince, shall we not? I 
trust you will have no feeling of anger. When the 
supernatural interferes one is not master of himself.” 

“All this is very fine!” thought Kemeneff. “But 
the ghost was not on the programme. To defend 
one’s self against the living is enough of a task for a 
husband with a young and pretty wife. If I have 
to pick a quarrel with the dead into the bargain my 
task will not be a light one.” 


SEALED LIPS. 


267 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

“PITY ME, SINCE YOU PITY PATRICE.” 

The Sabbath after the two women returned to 
Paris, the curate who was to preach gave up his 
place in the Saint Augustine pulpit to a priest who 
preached there for the first time. He was a tall 
man, with a long white beard. He wore a dark 
robe, crossed by a purple ribbon, from which was 
suspended a gold cross. 

A sympathetic curiosity was aroused among the 
faithful ones at the sight of this old preacher with 
this superb head that might have served a painter 
as a model. When the old man commenced to 
speak and announced the subject of his short dis- 
course, a young woman who was plunged in deep 
reverie, gave a sudden start, and raised her eyes 
toward him. She was so overcome with emotion 
that she forgot where she was, the crowd that sur- 
rounded her, her own existence even, all to follow 
this priest across the seas to this distant region that 
he described with such simple and picturesque elo- 
quence. 

The missions in Algeria! These words spoken 
during the discourse struck Jenny to the very heart. 
She eagerly devoured the evangelist’s words, as 
with indefatigable zeal he solicited aid from the 


268 


SEALED LIPS. 


faithful ones in France for those whom he called 
“his poor children.” She listened to the simple re- 
cital of the wandering trips that he made through 
plains swept by simoons and through forests hardly 
accessible at the foot of the Atlas. 

When he descended from the pulpit the man of 
God humbly extended his hand among the crowd 
for assistance, the young woman took off her gold 
bracelet, and threw it into the plate, tying her card 
to it. 

“ Will you please bring this jewel to my house,” 
said she, in a low voice ; “ I will buy it of your poor 
people for much more than it cost.” 

She could not get the thought of Patrice O’Farrell 
out of her head the rest of the day. He had often 
spoken in his letters of a saintly missionary, his 
only friend there, and often his guest. 

“If it should be the same!” thought the widow. 

It was he! The next day a visitor was an- 
nounced at the little apartment in Rue de Vienne. 
He gave the name of Pere Chrysostome. 

Jenny awaited him, fortunately her mother was 
not present to disturb the conversation. Her emo- 
tion was so great that she would have given some 
hint to the good man if he had not been intent upon 
hunting for the bracelet in the depths of his large 
pocket, where it was carefully wrapped up in a 
piece of newspaper. 

Wishing to have time to collect herself, she went 


SKALED LIPS. 


269 


to the secretary to get some money. When she 
returned Pere Chrysostome was standing. 

“Thanks, madam,” said he, reaching out his 
hand. “God will repay you for what you have 
done for his poor creatures.” 

He seemed in a hurry to depart, by discretion 
probably, as he did not appear in the least embar- 
rassed. On the contrary, there was something 
about him that showed that he had more than once 
in his life walked over carpets in elegant houses. 

But this haste was not to Jenny’s mind. She 
took a chair, and played with the gold pieces in her 
hands. The venerable mendicant was obliged to 
seat himself also. How she must broach the sub- 
ject. She could not say to the old man : 

“ For two years my heart has belonged to a man 
that you often see. I wish to know why he does 
not wish to love me.” 

Fortunately the priest came to her aid by enter- 
ing into conversation with that ease which is the 
way of the world. 

“Madam,” said he, “I will tell the story of your 
bracelet to my poor children in Algeria. You would 
hardly believe how these generous acts touch them 
and prepare them to love France. They have so 
many less edifying examples under their eyes to 
inspire them with the reverse sentiments!” 

“Yes,” replied the young woman. “They say 
that the missionaries can not always rely upon the 
moral support of our colonists in Algeria.” 


270 


SEALED LIPS. 


Madame Sauval would have been proud of her 
daughter if she could have seen with what cunning 
Pere Chrysostome was lead to speak of the French 
colonists. The more severe his interlocutor was 
the more this apostle of charity defended them. It 
was fortunate that something told Jenny to accuse 
them. 

“The Parisians,” said the priest, “have a bad 
habit. They form their opinions on all subjects 
from one piece. That there may be among our emi- 
grants suspicious characters would not be surpris- 
ing. But we have some before whom I bow with 
respect, whom I am honored to have for friends. I 
know one story in particular that I am sure would 
make you shed tears.” 

“Oh! mon pere” said the young woman, trem- 
bling with emotion, “make me cry, I beg of you. I 
promise you that I will pay a good price to your 
poor people for every tear I shed.” 

At this romantic appeal the missionary softly 
smiled. 

“Mon Dieu! I have said too much, I am afraid. 
But the prize tempts me. My friend— you will allow 
me to conceal his name— is a young hermit who 
lives in the depths of the forests.” 

“To repent of his sins?” 

“No, simply to cut wood. Up to this time your 
eyes have no desire to weep. But if I should tell 
you his story, and show you how unhappy he is, 
unhappy and without remedy!” 


SEALED LIES. 


271 


“An unrequited love, perhaps?” asked the young 
woman as she turned the gold pieces one by one, as 
if to assure herself that none were counterfeit. 

“Unrequited because he willed it so. He sacri- 
ficed love to friendship, then his heart bled almost 
its last drop. To avoid all deception he left ; to for- 
get he worked.” 

“Did he forget?” asked Jenny, in a changed voice. 

“ He has not forgotten. Already you are affected, 
and the story has scarcely commenced. Listen to 
the rest. After being married some months the 
friend on account of many griefs fell ill, and died. 
You think, do you not, that these two people, who 
loved each other so much, are at last united?” 

“Why not?” asked Godefroid’s widow, breath- 
lessly. 

“Here the drama commences, one can hardly 
believe who has not known the tempest of passion, 
trouble, and egotism. Like those misers who wish 
their treasures buried with them, this unhappy 
man, who is no more, torn by atrocious suspicions 
and jealousy, wished that his friend, who is in 
Algeria, should sacrifice himself forever by making 
a vow. This young man swore, not foreseeing that 
he would so soon pay for his generosity by bitter 
tears. He swore that his friend’s wife, the apple 
of discord between them, should always be a 
stranger to him, even if death made her free.” 

Jenny arose from her chair, pale with anger. 


272 


SEALED LIPS. 


She had no wish to cry ; flashes, not tears, came 
from her eyes. 

“A vow!” exclaimed she. “ What right had 
Patrice to swear? What right ” 

“ Grand Dieu /” said Pere Chrysostome, joining 
his hands. “Do you know him? You know his 
name? You ” 

“Alas!” said she, dropping into a seat entirely 
overcome. “ For two years the thought of him has 
filled my heart. For two years I have struggled 
with this mystery, that I understand at last. How 
I have suffered ! How I have struggled ! Forgive 
me the subterfuge that I have used to find out 
what I have just heard. Pity me, since you pity 
Patrice O’Farrell. Poor, poor friend! What has 
he done!” 

They both of them were silent for several minutes. 
Jenny was the first to speak. 

“ Do you think that he ought to be bound by this 
vow?” said she. 

“I think so,” said the priest, “and I probably am 
the one who prevented his breaking it.” 

Then she could not retain her spiteful feeling 
against the dead. 

“Oh, Godefroid! How could you be so cruel, 
wicked, and heartless!” cried she “To have in- 
vented this! To have buried me alive, I, who de- 
voted myself to you like a slave, and tried to make 
you happy! You will tell me, I suppose, like other 
priests, that I ought to pardon him?” 


SEALED LIPS. 


273 


Surprised at receiving no response, she turned 
toward the old man, her eyes shining with a mel- 
ancholy light. His eyes were fastened upon a por- 
trait that he had just observed, and he seemed not 
to hear her. 

“It is my mother,” said she, forgetting for the 
moment her sorrow. Pere Clirysostome’s confused 
expression struck her so forcibly. 

He trembled, and his long beard shook as if agi- 
tated by a breeze. With effort, he turned his eyes 
away from the canvas which represented Martscha 
in all the flush of her young beauty. 

“My daughter!” he took breath after this word, 
“pardon the dead, that they may pardon us. But 
will they? How shall we know?” 

He arose, pale and exhausted, trying in vain to 
stand erect. He seemed broken and aged several 
years in these few moments. He had no other 
thought than to get out of this house as soon as 
possible. He was going, leaving in the young 
woman’s hands the rich offering that he had come 
to seek. 

“Ah! Do you forsake me?” exclaimed she, as 
she saw him about to disappear. “ Have I said one 
word that your ears ought not to have heard? God 
sees my heart, as he knows my life, I have no act 
to blush over. Why will you not listen to my 
troubles?” 

“Alas!” said the holy man, turning toward her, 
“God only can heal your wounds. As for me, I 


274 


SEALED LIPS. 


have said adieu to the world and all its troubles. 
You have made me break my promise by a subter- 
fuge that I excuse. Ah! I am cruelly punished 
for leaving my desert home ! Why did those whose 
orders I must obey send me here.” 

Jenny listened, but she did not understand the 
old man’s trouble, for he seemed elevated by age 
and austerity above the things of this world. Once 
more he looked at the young woman with eyes 
moistened by emotion, then by a brusque move- 
ment he placed his hand on her head, and said, 
softly : 

“ God bless you, my child ! May we each of us 
have peace soon, with pardon for all our faults.” 

Without another word he disappeared. 

Madame Sauval entered almost immediately 
after, and found her daughter in a collapsed state, 
lost in reflections that completely absorbed her. 

“I just met in the vestibule an old priest, who had 
a very beautiful beard,” said the Roumanian. “Did 
he come out of here?” 

“Yes, mother; he is a monk who is soliciting alms 
for a good work.” 

“ He is very timid for his age, he drew himself up 
against the wall, as if he was afraid that my skirts 
would touch him, and I never even saw the color of 
his eyes.” 

Madame Sauval had very little love for priests, no 
matter who they were, but she especially detested 
those who solicited alms. 


SEALED LIPS. 


275 


CHAPTER XXX. 

I WILL LISTEN TO YOU. 

Jenny spent the rest of the day shut up in her 
room, trying to join together the details that she 
had learned from the priest and those that she had 
known for a long time. All Patrice O’Farrell’s 
mysterious actions were explained. She suspected 
now the role that he had assumed in_the beginning, 
and as he was resolved to keep his word, he shrank 
from any explanation as a useless cruelty. Upon 
himself alone the heavy secret must weigh. She at 
least, should be happy.” 

“And this man will never belong to me!” thought 
she, with a defiant smile at the impossibility. 

Having but one aim in life, she put aside for the 
moment her love, enthusiasm, and gratitude, all 
that could obscure her judgment. She went over 
again, in her mind, Godefroid’s last moments. The 
more she refiected, the more certain she was that 
the dying man wished to withdraw before his death 
the barrier that he had erected between his wife 
and friend. She could hear the words that he said 
when she wished to remove the ink-stain from his 
finger : 

“ I made that in giving those that I love a last 


276 


SEALED LIPS. 


proof of my affection, that they may be happy 
after I am gone.” 

Where was this proof? In the letter written to 
the notary, asking him to come quickly? This was 
Madame Sauval’s explanation. 

Jenny had had, for some time, other sentiments 
than that of blind confidence in her mother. She 
knew the greediness of her ambition, the unscru- 
pulous ease that she showed in her choice of argu- 
ments. What if this mother, eager for grandeur 
and riches for herself and daughter, had lied ! If 
those last lines written by Godefroid were some- 
thing besides a letter to his notary — a useless letter, 
since Patrice had gone to Pau in person ! If, on the 
contrary, the dying man had written them after his 
friend’s departure, when he felt that his moments 
were numbered ! If they had been confided to the 
one who assisted his trembling hand ! The unhappy 
man had so much confidence in Madame Sauval. 

“Would my mother dare?” 

The young woman’s only response to this ques- 
tion was to close her eyes and sigh. This paper, 
supposing that it existed, would render Kemeneff’s 
chances very doubtful. Madame Sauval was not 
ignorant of this fact, as she knew her daughter’s 
heart. Meanwhile Jenny remembered the fright- 
ened expression on her mother’s face at Pomeyras, 
at the time when the signature was about to be 
placed to the marriage document, and was sud- 
denly deferred. 


SEALED LIPS. 


2-77 


She arose to go and find her mother, and entreat 
her out of respect for the dead to tell her the truth. 
A wise thought prevented her from doing so. 
Would she give way after having gone so far? And 
this paper, if it still existed, might she not destroy 
it as a dangerous piece of testimony? 

Jenny shivered as she thought that a candle’s 
flame could in two seconds destroy her last hope. 
Then all would be lost, unless the dead man could 
come out of his grave and speak. 

Suddenly she struck her forehead; a thought had 
just come to her. She seated herself at the table, 
and wrote a letter; then hastily putting on her 
things, she took it to the post herself. Then she re- 
turned in a more tranquil frame of mind, and forced 
herself to restrain her impatience until the next 
day. 

“Now, then!” thought her mother, overjoyed at 
her uneasiness, which did not escape her eye. “She 
is reflecting, and very soon she will recall Kem- 
eneff.” 

The next afternoon a telegram arrived from Pau 
addressed to Madame Godefroid. The notary sent 
the following response: 

“Your husband never wrote me any letter. His 
friend was charged with a verbal message. My 
recollections are perfectly distinct. My documents 
do not contain any letter, and I always save every 
one of my clients’ notes.” 

Jenny was much affected as she read this dis- 


278 


SEALED LIPS. 


patch. Now there was no more doubt; her mother 
had lied. Godefroid, before he died, had written 
to release Patrice from his promise. What could 
he have written if not that “ to assure the happiness 
of those that he loved?” 

Jenny, trembling with hope, did not hesitate any 
longer. 

“Pere Chrysostome alone can advise me.” 

It took her the whole morning to find the priest. 
After going from convent to church, Madame Gode- 
froid found him at last, prostrate before the altar of 
a poor little church in the suburbs. He recognized 
her immediately, and once more his face became as 
confused as if at the approach of some terrible 
temptation. 

“You!” stammered he, as he arose. “Mon Dieu ! 
What is the matter?” 

“I beg of you to come to my aid, I need your ad- 
vice, monpere.” 

As he heard this word that had been often given 
him since he said adieu to the world, the missionary 
closed his eyes, and seemed strangely affected. 

“Come,” said he, sighing deeply. 

He bowed reverently before the altar, so low that 
his forehead nearly touched the floor, then pre- 
ceded the young woman into the small parlor with 
its glass door, through which one could see its 
smallest recesses. He seated himself there leaning 
upon the pine table and covering his face with the 
large flowing sleeves of his robe. 


SEALED LIPS. 


279 


“ I will listen to you,” said he. 

Then Jenny told him the story of the ink-stain, of 
her husband’s last words and the thoughts which 
had troubled her for three days. Pere Chrysostome 
did not make the slightest movement. The exclam- 
ations that escaped his lips resembled groans, and 
showed that he did not lose one word of the story. 
When the young woman ceased speaking, he said to 
himself : 

“Her mother has given her her unconquerable 
will, but she has given her only that. Oh, my God ! 
I see it, and thank you for it. What a heart ! What 
fidelity! What nobleness of character!” 

Jenny asked him, impatiently: 

“ And now what would you advise me to do?” 

“Do nothing,” said the priest, rising, for just then 
a clock struck in the hall. “ I am the one to act. I 
will see your mother to-morrow; I must see her 
alone. I have some things to say to her that no- 
body must hear. Adieu, madam ; the poor mission- 
ary blesses you.” 

“We shall meet again,” said Jenny, bowing. 

“Adieu,” said the old man. 

The closing door separated them. The priest lis- 
tened with glistening eye and quickened breath to 
her light steps as they died away on the flagging. 
Before going to the refectory he entered the chapel 
again. 

“My God!” prayed he, “I did not do this on pur- 
pose. I did not seek this happiness born of my 


280 


SEALED LIPS. 


crime. Do not let her cross my path again, that my 
expiation may be as complete as possible. But, oh, 
holy Father, may she be happy in this world, this 
poor child, who has not sinned!” 

The next day Madame Sauval was just finishing 
her toilet when a servant announced that a priest 
wished to speak with her. 

“What does he want?” asked the Roumanian. 
“Did he give his name? Is he in this parish?” 

“No, madam,” replied the domestic. “He is a 
missionary with a long beard.” 

“The same one my daughter saw on Monday?” 

“Yes, madam, the same.” 

“ These begging priests are a nuisance. Send him 
away.” 

“But, madam, he is in the parlor.” 

“ Why did you let him in ?” 

“Upon my honor, madam, he walked in of him- 
self, saying that he wished to see Madame Sauval.” 

Exasperated at his audacity, she joined her caller 
with a frowning countenance, and showing that 
she had no intention of seating herself : 

“ My daughter has given you something already. 
Why do you come again, Monsieur l’Abbe?” 

A commanding glance that was not new to her, 
prevented her from continuing her role of offended 
queen any longer. At this time she had no wish to 
mock at this shy priest, nor to complain that she 
had not seen the color of his eyes. Once she had 
been fascinated by these dark eyes that were now 


SEALED LIPS. 


281 


flashing with rage. Still she doubted, it was so 
long ago. 

“ I did not come to ask you for money,” said the 
priest, slowly. 

Madame Sauval fell back in her chair at the 
sound of this voice. She felt her limbs bending 
under her. There could he no further doubt. A 
distant period in her life which she felt was buried 
in the tomb had risen up before her. She stam- 
mered : 

“What do you want?” 

“What I wish,” said Pere Chrysostome, “is the 
paper that you received from Godefroid upon his 
death bed.” 

The Roumanian raised her head at these words. 
She had lied, deceived, and betrayed all her life, 
but she possessed an unexpected mixture of incon- 
sistent faults that made her a dangerous woman to 
struggle with. This imposter was also very cour- 
ageous. If one disputed her prey with her, this fox 
became a lion. She straightened herself up with a 
furious look, and the parting of the lips which had 
formerly been a voluptuous attraction when it dis- 
closed her white teeth now gave simply a malicious 
expression to her threatening face. The weak- 
nesses, falsehoods, and perfidies of other days were 
forgotten at the thought of one thing— if she hesi- 
tated Kemeneff would be lost to them. Her voice 
renewed its youth, and the exotic and sonorous 


282 


SEALED LIPS. 


quality of her native country which she had left 
thirty years before. 

“What paper? What are you saying? Who 
gives you the right to speak to me in such an arro- 
gant tone? What would your superiors say if they 
knew where you were at this moment?” 

“Would to Heaven that I had no rights!” re- 
sponded the priest, “but this is a matter which con- 
cerns me and my conscience. As to you, if my 
presence annoys you it is easy to free yourself from 
it. Obey me, and I will go.” 

“Who sent you?” 

“ I come on the part of the dead, of your daugh- 
ter’s husband.” 

“Did you know my son-in-law?” 

“What does it matter? In his name I claim the 
trust that he left with you, the last lines he wrote. 
It is his voice that speaks to you, his hand which 
threatens you. Take care!” 

Martscha trembled from head to foot, for she had 
had superstitious fears of the dead from her cradle. 
Still she thought that to be the mother of a princess 
a few sleepless nights was not too high a price. 

“You are deceived,” said she. “I never have re- 
cieved any trust. Who has made you believe that I 
would betray the confidence ” 

“Woman,” said the priest, “do not continue these 
pretenses. I know you. If it was not blasphemy 
I should say that I admire you. You have more 
courage than I have. I have not slept for twenty 


SCALED LIPS. 


233 


years, because I have before my eyes countinally 
the bloody, disfigured face of a man, who was 
nearer to you than Godefroid. What have you 
done to prevent his haunting you night and day, 
not to see him cursing us both with his dying 
breath?” 

“He died a soldier’s death,” stammered the 
widow. 

“ I will tell you how he died since you feign a con- 
venient ignorance. In the future you will not be 
able to pretend that you do not know.” 

Pere Chrysostome arose, and approached the 
chair where Sauval’s widow, was sitting. 

“One evening,” recited he, in a trembling voice, 
“your husband entered my room. We were near 
the enemy. We were preparing for battle next 
day. ‘General,’ said he, ‘one of my comrades 
thought he would make me smile by telling me a 
bivouac story— he was ignorant of the glorious role 
that I played in it — and told me that you were a 
coward, a liar, and a false friend. I know now that 
the favor that you did me in according me a post 
near you was the price of infamy. I know that my 
wife is a miserable, ambitious woman, that my 
daughter is a stranger who will live under a usurped 
name. In ten minutes my whole life has been 
ruined, past and future,. What matters all the 
events in the world to me now, victories or defeats? 
I have only one thing remaining— my honor as a 
soldier. That is why I do not kill you. At this time 


284 


SEALED LIPS. 


it would not be a legitimate vengeance ; it would be 
a crime against my country. I wish to die a death 
worthy of my French uniform. That my blood may 
be on your head I kill myself, and it is your hand 
that gets ahead of the enemy’s bullets. You have 
killed Major Sauval.’ I thought that he was crazy, 
although his words were only too clear to me. I 
looked at him petrified with shame and surprise, 
not knowing what to say. He threw a letter upon 
the table, accompanied with a laugh, that I can 
hear now, saying, ‘To whom better than to you 
could I confide the care of this letter to be sent to 
her address? But have no illusions, general. You 
$re no more fortunate than I ; she deceives you, 
too. ’ One second after he fell at my feet, with a 
shattered skull. As I am sure that God exists I am 
sure that he was crazy. He never in his right 
mind would have killed himself on the eve of a 
battle.” 

The priest had spoken very rapidly, and stopped 
to take breath as he wiped his forehead. He con- 
tinued immediately before the Roumanian had time 
to interrupt him : 

“ At least, I have saved his reputation ; alone, save 
for an officer who aided me in my fraud, and who 
knew that Sauval had not been killed in fighting 
near me. But I am the only one that knows it 
now. The next day, before noon, the other wit- 
nesses no longer existed. When the war was ended, 
for I was spared in spite of myself, I disappeared in 


SEALED LIES. 


285 


my turn, after having sent the terrible letter to 
you. If I reappear before you for an hour believe 
that it is only because I am determined to succeed 
in what I have undertaken. This dead man has 
been troubled and agitated in his grave long 
enough.” 

Madame Sauval sat perfectly motionless. Was 
it by the unexpected violence of the attack or by a 
supreme effort of desperate resistance? The priest’s 
voice became threatening as he said once more : 

“ I swear to you that Prince Kemeneff and Patrice 
O’Farrell shall know of the impious audacity with 
which you have suppressed Godefroid’s last words. 
You do not fear the dead any more, but take care, 
of the living.” 

Martscha understood that she was vanquished 
without hope of revenge. Rage, more than shame, 
covered her face when she arose to go into an ad- 
joining room. Quick to profit by all advantages, she 
said, in a harsh voice : 

“ Do not forget that the secret of a confession has 
closed your mouth.” 

“You are joking, I think,” responded the priest. 
“Have no fears. In telling the truth I should cover 
with shame and blood those that I love and have 
united. Hurry and obey me. Every minute that I 
pass in this house is a torture to me. Here, my 
priest’s robe burns my shoulders.” 

With the impatience of a lover who wishes to 
know his fate, this priest, bent with age, could 


286 


SEALED LIPS. 


hardly wait to read the note that Martscha slipped 
into his hand, trembling with rage. 

He sighed, and an expression of joy passed over 
his face as he read the lines that had been so labori- 
ously penned. 

He placed the paper in his pocket which con- 
tained this last will : 

“ I revoke, in case that my beloved wife should 
contract a second marriage with Patrice O’Farrell, 
the clause of disinheritance contained in my will. 
I wish to show by that that I wish and advise this 
union which will make, I have every reason to 
believe, the two people that I love best in this world 
happy. May they pardon and remember me.” 

This codicil, dated and signed, was an authentic 
act, and left Godefroid’s widow mistress of her 
fortune, if she married Patrice, but not if she mar- 
ried any other— Kemeneff, for example. Like a 
prudent woman, Martscha had taken care not to 
destroy the paper. One never can tell who may 
live nor who may die. In default of the prince, 
O’Farrell would be a suitable husband for Madame 
Godefroid. Poor himself, he would bring riches 
with him. If they were obliged to renounce the 
prince, Jenny would regain Pomeyras— happiness 
into the bargain. Such were Madame Sauval’s re- 
flections the very evening of Godefroid’s death. 

Pere Chrysostome saw it all at a glance and his 
heart was filled with bitter disgust when he thought 
of the past. 


SEALED LIPS. 


287 


“Mon Dieu /” prayed he, “you have not wished to 
leave anything that would punish me, even the 
shame of seeing to what a point I was the dupe of 
this unworthy creature. Give me once more the 
peace of my solitary expiation, and this time may 
1 have finished with the world!” 

When Jenny saw her mother there was no need 
of any question to know that the priest had been 
there. Madame Sauval seemed to have suddenly 
lost all energy and interest in life. Jenny did 
nothing to know the result of that interview, as 
much as she wished to know her fate, hut she was 
incapable of resting five minutes in the same place. 
As she saw the condition of the vanquished one, she 
felt great hope renewed in her. 

Toward the middle of the afternoon she received 
a strange missive — a page from a torn breviary, 
upon which she read the psalm, “Nunc dimittis.” 
At the bottom of the page was written, “Halle- 
lujah! hallelujah! Wait!” 

It was thus that this faithful heart knew her hap- 
piness was near. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but 
at first her gratitude turned toward this priest 
whose voice and slightest gestures made mysterious 
chords vibrate in her heart. A mystery that would 
never be cleared in this world. She waited as he 
had said, but one may believe that the days were 
long for her ; she lived, dreamed, and went to sleep 
with this thought. 


288 


SEALED LIPS. 


“He loves me; I was not mistaken! I shall be 
his!” 

At the same time sh'e knew by certain indications 
that Martscha was making preparations to leave 
France, and it troubled her not to be able fco say to 
this misguided woman : 

“You will stay with us.” 

But certain generous deeds are but acts of folly. 
At least she would try to be good to her mother 
during this short and last period of their common 
existence. 

One evening as they were taking leave of one 
another, Jenny waited, as usual, for the customary 
kiss, but was surprised to be clasped in the arm of 
a weeping woman : 

“ God preserve you,” sobbed Martscha, “from ever 
being pitied by your daughter.” 

This was the only sign of remorse or sorrow that 
she ever showed until the moment of her departure. 
She immediately regained possession of herself : 

“ How little you resemble me and how much you 
resemble him!” said she, looking at her daughter 
with a kind of humble admiration. 

Before Jenny could reply Madame Sauval had 
disappeared. 


SEALED LIPS. 


289 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

“I HAVE SOUGHT FOR IT SO LONG.” 

At the end of fifteen days, in spite of her hope in 
the future and her blind hope in Pere Chrysostome, 
whom she considered almost superhuman, Jenny 
was about at the end of her patience. Dark 
thoughts and fears of disasters troubled her mind. 
Had the priest fallen ill on the road? she knew that 
he had left. Was he dead? Was there some other 
obstacle that deterred Patrice? Why did he not 
write? 

One morning she had about made up her mind to 
write herself when the postman brought her one 
single line that she received before she was up : 

“To-day, at two o’clock, in the greenhouse.” 

“At last!” sighed she. 

Her head fell back on the pillows ; her eyes closed 
that she might better see a loved face, her hands 
sought among the cool lace the place where her 
heart was beating, and to press against it the mes- 
sage so long watched for. Two tears trickled down 
her soft, rosy cheeks, divinely tinted with the light 
of happiness. 

She spent the moments of waiting as if in a 
dream. She felt a delicious languor, and believed 
that she was calmer than ever in her life before ; 


290 


SEALED LIPS. 


but she was so feverishly excited that her mother 
suspected at once that she had heard from Patrice. 

At last the hand marked the hour, and the one 
who had so faithfully loved started out for her first 
rendezvous with her lover. 

Fortune favored them. The rain kept all Paris 
in doors. The greenhouse, with its cool foliage, 
belonged to them. As she stepped inside she saw 
Patrice waiting for her; she was seized with a sud- 
den fear. Was he going to play once more the role 
of indifference that he had so cruelly sustained for 
two years? Was Pere Chrysostome deceived in 
what he had told her? She did not fear very long. 
Patrice came to meet her, and folded her in his 
arms, gazing at her with eyes full of love. He did 
not speak for several seconds, but looked at her 
with his heart overflowing with joy, for he felt at 
this moment that this charming creature who was 
to belong to him had never attained such perfection 
of beauty as now. Patrice knelt before her, and in 
a voice of suppressed emotion said: 

“Oh, my beloved! how much I love you!” 

She leaned her head on her fiance’s shoulder, 
scarcely surprised at this tender familiarity, mixed 
with such respectful adoration. Their love was a 
thing so old that she could not be offended. She 
replied, very low : 

“Repeat it once more. I have sought for it so 
long!” 

“What I would like to do would be to open my 


SEALED LIPS . 


291 


heart, and show you these words which have bled 
in me for three years like wounds. Ah! if you 
could know how I love you, how I have suffered, 
how I have struggled.” 

“And I, too!” 

She accompanied these two words with a light 
pressure of her hand upon the young man's 
shoulder, who was still kneeling. 

“I was a hundred times the unhappier,” said 
O’Farrell. 

“No, for you knew that I loved you.” 

He arose. For a moment the thought of the past 
made an unhappy expression pass over his face. 

“You were not like what I was, lost in solitude, 
overcome with discouragement. You did not hear 
in the night voices that turned your devotion into 
derision, as well as the fidelity of a vow, or all that 
was good or true in a man’s heart. You did not 
curse, as I have more than once, others and your- 
self, for the troublesome severity of certain scruples 
or the egotism of certain lovers!” 

She placed her hands over his mouth. 

“Curse nobody. I admire you, I love you, and I 
approve of you; is that not enough? Oh! Patrice, 
you might have had me sooner, but would you have 
had me so surely? I swear to you, no! If I could 
show you all that you have gained by this long 
waiting, you would bless instead of cursing it. 
With the same love, my heart brings you all that it 
contains of esteem, confidence, and respect. Take 


292 


SEALED LIPS. 


me to the ends of the earth, order me to draw a 
cart like that poor woman you wrote me about in 
Algeria, order me to die — you would see!” 

“Ah!” said he, “this is what I order; I have been 
dying for so many years to do so!” 

His lips sought hers, and she obeyed. 

“I beg of you,” said she, releasing herself, “do 
not forget that I am your fiancee. ” 

They seated themselves hand in hand upon the 
green bench where they had once sat before. 

“Nov/,” said she, turning her large eyes on him, 
“tell me about Pere Chrysostome.” 

“ He reached the forest five days ago, thin, old, 
and changed. I hardly recognized him. At first I 
thought he must bring me news of some disaster. 
He soon reassured me, however. ‘Go quickly ; she 
is waiting for you ; she is yours ; these lines give 
her to you,’ and he placed this paper in my hand.” 

Jenny’s beautiful face became sad as she glanced 
„ at the handwriting. 

“Poor Godefroid!” sighed she. “ It was writing 
this that stained his finger.” 

“Yes,” said Patrice, “and only for this stain, an 
avaricious, intriguing woman ” 

Again the little hand was placed over the mouth 
of this son in-law in a fair way to commence where 
sons-in-law generally end. 

“I am her daughter,” said Jenny, slowly. 

Then, to turn his thoughts from this painful 
topic, she kissed the paper, and handed it to 


SEALED LIPS. 


293 


Patrice, bending her head and humbly addressed 
these words to the one who was no more. 

“Pardon, poor Godefroid!” 

“Yes, pardon !” repeated Patrice, like an echo. 
“Oh! that he may pardon us, poor friend! For 
some time I have judged him harshly in my heart. 
You, too, I suspect. But he has painted himself in 
the last words that he said to me, ‘It is a great mis- 
fortune to love too passionately and too late.’ My 
dear, there are many ways of loving.” 

Jenny looked at Patrice no longer. She seemed 
to be seeking in the foliage a floating form, and 
said, in a loud voice, as if to be heard by this in- 
visible witness : 

“No, there is only one way to love, and that was 
his, it shall be ours— to love until death.” 

She arose to leave, and her companion did not 
try to prolong the tete-a-tete . They had called up 
Godefroid, and dared not speak of love in his pres- 
ence, for they yet feared, in spite of all, his jeal- 
ousy. 

When the young woman was seated in her car- 
riage she said, smilingly: 

“ I imagine that you will not oblige me to go so 
far to join you, as if you wished to hide me from 
everybody.” 

Patrice was pleased at the thought that they 
would not have to hide from anybody. He replied : 

“ I wished to see you under these palm trees that 
recalled such souvenirs. And then I admit it— the 


204 


SEALED LIPS. 


presence of a certain person. I was afraid of not 
having control over myself.” 

“Poor mother! I doubt if she will remain long in 
France. How you look at me ! Tell me your 
thoughts.” 

“ I was thinking that once before I saw you in a 
carriage as I see you now. Do you remember? It 
was before a certain door, you came to inquire for 
an invalid. Your eyes, as they met mine entered 
my heart, and took possession there forever. You 
smile. In your turn tell me what thought pleases 
you.” 

“ I think that we were then like two combatants 
who pierce each other with their swords at the same 
blow.” 

Without speaking but by a movement of the lips 
they sent each other a kiss, and the carriage 
started off. 




SEALED LIPS. 


295 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

“dead!” 

O’Farrell never saw Madame Sauval again. She 
went quietly to Roumania soon after his return. 
This departure cast a shadow over the future coun- 
tess’ joy, but it was indispensable in the interests 
of all and the few who knew Jenny’s past. What 
would they have said had they known the whole 
history ? 

The lovers had one other regret. They wished 
that Pere Chrysostome should bless their union. 
Before fixing the date of the ceremony Patrice 
wrote him and asked him to make the voyage, and 
sent him the means to do so. But the good man 
replied by a formal refusal of this request, and 
what was most astonishing the letter was addressed 
to Jenny: 

“What you ask of me would be too great a pleas- 
ure for an old man who must expiate his sins. 
Three years of penance would not pay for the sacri- 
fice that I impose upon myself in not coming to you 
upon that day. You will never know how much 
pleasure I renounce. Your happiness, if my pray- 
ers are heard, will continue to increase. Be happy. 
And you, my daughter”— these words were hardly 
legible, the priest’s hand trembled so— “do not for- 


296 


SEALED LIPS. 


get that you should pray every day for two people 
that are dead, and soon for three.” 

A short time after their marriage the new couple, 
installed at Pomeyras, received their mail. The 
Countess O’Farrell commenced to read a letter post- 
marked Roumania, it was a very short acknowledg- 
ment of the first payment of a life income freely 
given her in the marriage contract. 

She was interrupted by an exclamation from 
Patrice, who handed her a letter still sealed, ad- 
dressed in the young man’s handwriting to Pere 
Chrysostome at Telagh, on which was written, “ Re- 
turned, uncalled for.” The holy man had ended 
his peregrinations. Under the missionary’s name 
was written, in a strange hand, one single word : 

“Dead!” 


[the end.] 


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No. 82— NOBODY’S DAUGHTER, by Clara Augusta 25 

No. 81— A GODDESS IN EXILE, by Philip S. Warne 25 

No. 80— THRICE WEDDED, BUT ONLY ONCE A WIFE, by Mrs. Sheldon 25 

No. 79— THE GAY CAPTAIN, by Mrs. M. V. Victor 25 

No. 78 — VASHTI'S FATE, or, PURIFIED BY FIRE, by Helen Corwin Pierce.. 25 

No. 77— THE THREE BLOWS, by Karl Drury 25 

No. 76 — A PROUD DISHONOR, by Genie Holtzmeyer 25 

No. 75 — THE WIDOWED BRIDE, by Lucy Randall Comfort 25 

No. 74— THE GRINDER PAPERS, by Mary Kyle Dallas 25 

No. 73— BORN TO COMMAND, by Hero Strong 25 

No. 72 — A MODERN MIRACLE, by James Franklin Fitts 25 

No. 71— THE SWEET SISTERS OF INCHVARRA, by Annie Ashmore 25 

No. 70 — HIS OTHER WIFE, by Rose Ashleigh 25 

No. 69 — A SILVER BRAND, by Charles T. Manners 25 

No. 68— ROSLYN’S TRUST, by Lucy C. Lillie 25 

No. 67— WILLFUL WINNIE, by Harriet Sherburne 25 

No. 66— ADAM KENT'S CHOICE, by Humphrey Elliott 25 

No. 65 — LAURA BRAYTON, by Julia Edwards 25 

No. 64— YOUNG MRS. CHARNLEIGH, by T. W. Hanshew 25 

No. 63 -BORN TO BETRAY, by Mrs. M. V. Victor 25 

No. 62 — A STRANGE PILGRIMAGE, by Mrs. J. H. Walworth , 25 

No. 61 — THE ILLEGAL MARRIAGE, by Hon. Evelyn Ashby 25 

No. 60— WON ON THE HOMESTRETCH, by Mrs. M. C. Williams 25 

No. 59 — WHO S3 WIFE IS SHE? by Annie Lisle 25 

No. 58 — KILDHURM’S OAK, by Julian Hawthorne 25 

No. 57 — STEPPI TG-STONES, by Marion Harland 25 

No. 56 — THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT, by Mary A. Denison 25 

No. 55 — ROXY HASTINGS, by P. Hamilton Myers 25 

No. 54 — THE FACE OF ROSENFEL, by C. H. Montague 25 

No. 53— THAT GIRL OF JOHNSON'S, by Jean Kate Ludlum 25 

No. 52— TRUE TO HERSELF, by Mrs. J. H. Walworth 25 

No. 51— A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN’S SIN, by Hero Strong 25 

No. 50 — MARRIED IN MASK, by Mansfield Tracy Walworth 25 

No. 49— GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY, by Mrs. M. V. Victor 25 

No. 48 —THE MIDNIGHT MARRIAGE, by A. M. Douglas 25 

No. 47— SADIA THE ROSEBUD, by Julia Edwards 25 

No. 46— A MOMENT OF MADNESS, by Charles J. Bellamy 25 

No. 45— WEAKER THAN A WOMAN, by Charlotte M. Brame 25 

No. 44 -A TRUE ARISTOCRAT, by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 25 

No. 43— TRIXY, by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 25 

No. 42— A DEBT OF VENGEANCE, by Mrs. E. Burke Collins 25 

No. 41 -BEAUTIFUL RIENZI, by Annie Ashmore 25 

No. 40— AT A GIRL’S MERCY, by Jean Kate Ludlum 25 

No. 39 -MARJORIE DEANE, by Bertha M. Clay 25 

No. 38— BEAUTIFUL, BUT POOR, by Julia Edwards 25 


These popular books are large type editions, well printed, well bound, and 
in handsome covers. For sale by all Booksellers and Newsdealers ; or sent, 
postage free, on receipt of price, 25 cents each, by the publishers, 

STREET & SMITH, 

25 to 31 Rose Street, New York. 


P. O. Box 2734. 


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